The global competition for influence over the international financial system has entered a new phase, as the expanding BRICS bloc advances an initiative to streamline intra-bloc cross-border payments and reduce reliance on Western-dominated financial infrastructure. During the 18th BRICS Summit held in New Delhi on 12 and 13 September, bloc leaders formally backed further development of local currency trade mechanisms and cross-border payment systems, highlighting the strategic role of BRICS Pay, a project led by the BRICS Business Council. First proposed in 2018, BRICS Pay is designed as a digital payment and settlement ecosystem that connects existing national payment systems across member states, aiming to make cross-border transactions faster, more affordable, and less vulnerable to external geopolitical pressure. Contrary to widespread speculation, the initiative is not positioned as an immediate full replacement for the SWIFT global financial messaging network, or major Western card networks like Visa and Mastercard; instead, it operates as a complementary alternative infrastructure that works alongside existing global systems. There are also no current plans to launch a single centralized BRICS payment system or a common BRICS currency, a distinction that reflects the divergent economic and geopolitical priorities across the bloc’s 11 current members.
To understand the urgency behind BRICS Pay, one must look at the shifting geopolitical landscape of recent years, which has turned financial infrastructure into a core tool of international statecraft. Western sanctions imposed after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine cut off major Russian financial institutions from the SWIFT network, exposing the profound risks emerging economies face when critical components of their international financial infrastructure are controlled by external powers. For Russia, the exclusion made clear how dependent even large economies are on systems outside their sovereign control, and Moscow has since become a leading advocate for alternative payment arrangements and expanded use of national currencies in intra-bloc trade. But the push for alternatives extends far beyond Russia: many emerging market economies across BRICS have growing concerns over the concentration of control over global financial infrastructure in a small group of Western nations and institutions.
A common misconception about BRICS is that it acts as a unified geopolitical and economic bloc with a single shared financial agenda. In reality, member states hold widely divergent interests, shaped by their unique trade relationships, existing financial systems, currency policies, and diplomatic ties to Western powers and the U.S. dollar. For example, India maintains deep economic and strategic ties with both Western nations and fellow BRICS members, while Brazil’s policy priorities differ sharply from Russia’s, and China already operates a robust cross-border payment infrastructure of its own. This diversity rules out a fully centralized, one-size-fits-all BRICS payment system in the near term. Instead, the bloc is pursuing a more pragmatic model: an interoperable network that links existing independent national payment systems, rather than building an entirely new centralized system from scratch.
Manoj Kewalramani, chair of the Geostrategy Programme at Indian think tank Takshashila Institution, framed the initiative to Al Jazeera as an iterative exploration of tools to reduce the vulnerability of intra-BRICS trade and financial ties, rather than a direct challenge to the existing global order. At its core, the development of BRICS Pay touches on a fundamental geopolitical question: who controls the infrastructure that underpins global trade and international financial transactions?
How does BRICS Pay work in practice? The core premise is that each member state retains its existing domestic payment infrastructure, while BRICS Pay builds the technical bridges to enable these separate systems to communicate with one another, via tools like QR codes, digital wallets, and mobile applications. For consumers, this could mean a traveler from India visiting Brazil would be able to use their existing Indian payment infrastructure directly, rather than relying on international card networks or traditional cross-border payment services. The same model applies to business and banking transactions: an Indian firm trading with a Chinese partner could settle transactions directly in their respective national currencies via connected domestic systems, arranged through agreements between their financial institutions.
Andrey Mikhaylishin, CEO of BRICS Pay, pointed to existing cutting-edge national systems as the building blocks for the network, including India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and RuPay, Russia’s Mir card network and Fast Payment System. Currently, these advanced national systems operate in isolation: an Indian payment app does not work automatically in China, a Brazilian domestic network cannot connect seamlessly to Russian banks, and China’s infrastructure does not natively interoperate with India’s. BRICS Pay’s core mission is to close these gaps.
Many member states already operate world-class national payment systems that can serve as a foundation for the expanded network:
– India’s UPI is one of the most advanced instant payment systems globally, enabling fast person-to-person and business-to-consumer transactions directly from bank accounts. While it dominates domestic retail payments and has been rolled out in a small number of partner countries, its role in facilitating large-scale international trade remains limited for now.
– Brazil’s Pix is another wildly popular instant payment system that has rapidly become a core part of the country’s domestic payment ecosystem. Like UPI, its main gap is the lack of established international interoperability. A successful domestic system does not automatically translate to a functional global payment network.
– China’s Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) is a dedicated infrastructure for cross-border renminbi payments. It is important to note that CIPS does not fill the exact same role as SWIFT: CIPS handles the processing and settlement of cross-border renminbi transactions, while SWIFT is primarily a secure messaging network that allows financial institutions to exchange payment instructions and transaction information.
This distinction is critical for anyone comparing BRICS Pay to SWIFT. The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) is not a global settlement system that moves money between accounts itself. Instead, it is a standardized, secure messaging network used by more than 11,000 financial institutions worldwide to exchange transaction information. Its massive scale, built up over decades of operation, creates a self-reinforcing network effect: the more institutions that join SWIFT, the more valuable the network becomes for every user. Beyond technology, SWIFT represents a decades-old global framework of trust, standardized rules, regulation, and financial relationships that cannot be easily replaced overnight.
In their joint declaration from the New Delhi summit, BRICS leaders emphasized the need to prioritize national sovereign priorities, noting that no universal solution exists for all member states. BRICS Pay is also open to use by friendly non-BRICS countries, expanding its potential reach over time. For now, the initiative remains a work in progress, focused on incremental connection of existing systems rather than a sudden overhaul of the global financial order.
