Ongoing efforts by BRICS members to strengthen payment and currency cooperation are seen as crucial to bolstering their financial autonomy and resilience amid growing concerns over the dollar-centric international monetary system, experts said.
Practical avenues include extending existing bilateral payment arrangements, expanding local currency settlements and broadening access to infrastructure such as the Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) and the multilateral central bank digital currency (CBDC) platform mBridge, they said.
Progress, however, is likely to be incremental, as monetary sovereignty remains a central consideration in coordinating rules across economies. Such cooperation is more likely to complement and help rebalance the existing global monetary system than to fundamentally reshape it in the near term, they added.
The assessments come as BRICS leaders meet in India, against the backdrop of continuing efforts to explore greater connectivity among members” payment systems.
At the July 2025 summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, members tasked finance ministers and central bank governors with continuing discussions on the BRICS Cross-Border Payments Initiative. The declaration also acknowledged the payment task force’s progress in identifying possible pathways toward greater interoperability and welcomed a technical report on cross-border payments.
Analysts said a more fragmented global economic and political landscape has strengthened the case for BRICS payment cooperation, as members seek greater financial autonomy and reduced vulnerability to financial surveillance and sanctions by the United States and other Western powers.
Yang Tao, a council member of the National Institution for Finance & Development, highlighted in his remarks and writings that closer payment cooperation could reduce BRICS members’ reliance on the US dollar and Western-dominated financial infrastructure, including SWIFT, while strengthening their financial autonomy and resilience to any possible sanctions.
“The most realistic approach is to start bilaterally and move toward multilateral cooperation, gradually building on existing bilateral arrangements rather than trying to establish a unified system in one step,” Yang said.
Liu Xiaochun, vice-president of the Shanghai Finance Institute, said cross-border dollar payments and clearing routed through US-based clearing banks and the Clearing House Interbank Payments System, or CHIPS, fall within the reach of US regulatory oversight and sanctions enforcement, giving countries an incentive to diversify payment channels.
Beyond dollar clearing, Liu highlighted the importance of access to financial messaging data. Following the 9/11, 2001, attacks, the US Treasury Department established the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program to obtain certain transaction records on SWIFT — the prominent global financial messaging network — for counter-terrorism investigations, which, in practice, gives US authorities a means to trace cross-border financial flows.
According to Liu, BRICS countries seeking greater autonomy in cross-border payments need to consider three key questions: how to move from dollar dominance toward the use of multiple currencies; whether to develop financial messaging channels independent of SWIFT; and how digital currencies could bring the transfer of monetary value, payment messaging and settlement onto a common platform.
Gradual approach
Bilateral cooperation has been underway. The People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank, has appointed local banks in Brazil, South Africa and Indonesia as renminbi clearing banks, providing infrastructure to facilitate the currency’s use in bilateral trade and investment.
In June, China and Indonesia have officially launched the China-Indonesia Cross-Border QR Code Payment Connectivity project. UnionPay International and ICBC Brazil also signed a memorandum last year to enable UnionPay participating wallets to scan QR codes and pay directly at merchants within Brazil’s PIX network.
The move illustrates how bilateral arrangements can underpin efforts to make cross-border payments more convenient, without requiring a common currency.
Liu said that a common BRICS currency would be impractical under current conditions. In his assessment, differences among member economies and currency movements would make it difficult to coordinate an arrangement capable of maintaining a stable value and securing user confidence.
Similarly, Liu said that expanding CIPS — the primary platform for cross-border yuan clearing and settlement — would be more practical than building a separate messaging network from scratch. Replicating SWIFT’s messaging functions would be technically achievable, but a new network with much lower transaction volumes could struggle to cover its substantial costs.
He cited CIPS’ integrated messaging and clearing functions, modern messaging standards and access for foreign banks as direct participants as foundations for broader international use, suggesting that opening CIPS further to equity participation by foreign banks would strengthen its international appeal.
By the end of 2025, CIPS had 193 direct participants and 1,573 indirect participants, according to its operator. It processed 180.2 trillion yuan ($26.9 trillion) in payments that year, up from 175 trillion yuan in 2024.
Revised CIPS business rules, effective from February, allow overseas CIPS direct participants to appoint any qualified direct participant — not necessarily an onshore bank — as their custodian, a change analysts said will significantly lower entry barriers for foreign lenders.
Digital currencies offer another avenue, although connecting platforms will require more than technological innovation, Liu said. “Cross-border CBDC payment arrangements would require detailed cooperation between bilateral regulators and alignment of rules, making their cross-border expansion a relatively lengthy process.”
Miao Yanliang, chief economist at China International Capital Corp, said, “The digital yuan has the potential to expand the RMB’s role in international settlement and payments, with its programmability enabling fast and secure large-value cross-border transactions.”
One existing platform is mBridge, a project that explores a shared platform for cross-border payments and settlement using multiple CBDCs. The platform’s cumulative transaction value had reached almost 500 billion yuan by end-2025, with more than 95 percent of the transactions made using e-CNY payment methods as of end-November 2025.
Challenges remain
Miao, however, said the key challenge is interoperability: Connecting payment infrastructure across jurisdictions while bridging differences in technical standards and compliance regimes. Overcoming those barriers would broaden the market access and users the digital yuan could serve.
More broadly, Yang pointed to differences in members’ financial systems, currencies and anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing requirements when advancing cross-border payment cooperation. The absence of common governance rules, compounded by geopolitical mistrust, could further slow implementation.
Yang identified expanding local currency financing by the New Development Bank and advancing currency diversification within the Contingent Reserve Arrangement as promising areas for nearterm financial cooperation among BRICS members, citing their existing operational foundations.
For Liu, reconciling national policy objectives with commercial preferences is equally important. While businesses seek currencies that suit their needs, governments want to promote their own currencies, complicating agreement on shared arrangements.
“In BRICS payment cooperation, the key is for national leaders to exercise political wisdom — to respect market preferences rather than impose a particular currency or system through administrative measures. The aim is to better connect BRICS economies, facilitate greater trade and investment flows and enable them to support one another’s development,” he said.
