India is unlikely to support a common BRICS currency at the bloc’s September 12-13 summit in New Delhi. Instead, the country appears to be advancing a less dramatic but more technically demanding proposition: linking national payment systems and central bank digital currencies so that trade, tourism and other cross-border transactions can be settled more easily.
The distinction is central. A common BRICS currency would require participating countries to create and adopt a new monetary unit. Interoperable payment systems would allow the rupee, yuan, rouble and other national currencies to remain in place while improving how they move across borders. India’s emerging position is therefore not a proposal to replace national currencies, but an attempt to reduce the friction involved in using them internationally.
The idea comes as BRICS members continue to discuss alternatives to the dollar-based payments system, even as India has publicly rejected the creation of a bloc-wide currency. The Economic Times reported on August 29, citing people familiar with the deliberations, that India was likely to propose seamless cross-border digital payments and greater adoption of central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, at the summit. The report also said that the final list of issues for the leaders’ consideration had not yet been settled.
India’s public opposition to a common BRICS currency was stated by Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal after a two-day meeting of BRICS trade and industry ministers in Jaipur on August 7. “India is not in favour of a BRICS currency. We do not support the introduction of any such BRICS currency scheme; India opposes it,” Goyal said, according to PTI.
That position is consistent with earlier comments from External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar. Speaking at an event in Doha on December 7, 2024, Jaishankar said BRICS countries had no interest in weakening the US dollar, Reuters reported. His comments followed a warning from then US President-elect Donald Trump that BRICS members could face tariffs if they created a new currency or backed another currency intended to replace the dollar.
Trump repeated that threat after taking office. In January 2025, he said the United States would impose 100% tariffs on BRICS members if they created a common currency or supported another currency designed to replace the dollar. India has sought greater international use of the rupee, but New Delhi and the Reserve Bank of India have maintained that this effort is not intended to constitute de-dollarisation.
The CBDC proposal occupies a different policy space. A CBDC is sovereign money issued electronically by a central bank. India’s CBDC, the digital rupee or e₹, entered a retail pilot in December 2022. It is different from the Unified Payments Interface, or UPI. When a person sends money through UPI, the system functions as a payment rail for transferring commercial bank deposits. In a CBDC transaction, the digital money itself is issued by the central bank.
In January 2026, Reuters reported that the RBI had recommended placing the linking of BRICS central bank digital currencies on the agenda for India’s BRICS presidency. The proposal envisaged connecting official digital currencies to make cross-border trade and tourism payments easier. At that stage, however, it was an RBI recommendation to the Indian government, not an approved BRICS initiative. No bloc-wide CBDC network had been agreed.
The proposal built on the declaration adopted at the 2025 BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro, which supported greater interoperability between members’ payment systems. Interoperability would theoretically allow a business or traveller to use a national digital currency across participating economies without relying on as many intermediaries. That could reduce transaction time and costs, but it would not remove the need for countries to agree on how those transactions are authorised, converted, monitored and settled.
RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra confirmed that discussions were under way during an event in Mumbai on August 11. “Cross-border payments is an area of interest for all of us, including the BRICS, because we feel there is a lot of scope for reducing cost,” Malhotra said, according to Reuters. He added that several options were being considered, including CBDCs and linkages between fast-payment systems, but that the matter remained at the discussion stage.
That qualification points to the gap between a political objective and an operational network. Countries would need compatible technology, common standards and an agreed governance framework. They would also have to resolve regulatory questions involving customer identification, anti-money-laundering controls, data protection, settlement finality and the legal status of transactions conducted across jurisdictions.
Technology is only one obstacle. Reuters’ January report, citing one of two sources familiar with the RBI proposal, said some countries could be reluctant to adopt technological platforms developed elsewhere. That could delay progress even if governments agree in principle that cross-border payments should become faster and cheaper. A system linking national payment networks would require consensus over both the technical architecture and the regulatory rules governing it.
Trade imbalances create another difficulty. India and Russia have already encountered problems while attempting to settle more trade in national currencies. After India’s imports from Russia increased following the Ukraine war, Russia accumulated substantial balances in Indian rupees because it was selling considerably more to India than it was buying. The resulting balances had limited uses in bilateral trade.
The RBI subsequently permitted some of those balances to be invested in Indian securities. Reuters also reported that bilateral foreign-exchange swaps between central banks were among the mechanisms being explored, with weekly or monthly settlements discussed as a possible way to manage imbalances. The issue illustrates why a digital payment connection cannot by itself solve the underlying economics of trade. Faster settlement does not determine how accumulated currency balances will be used when trade moves heavily in one direction.
Russia has also signalled that its position is not identical to the idea of replacing the dollar. On September 8, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia was not seeking de-dollarisation and was open to acceptable payment methods, Reuters reported. Peskov said that 90% of transactions between Russia and BRICS nations were being conducted in national currencies and that the problem of Russian companies accumulating excess Indian rupees was gradually being resolved.
For India, the attraction of payment-system links is therefore practical as well as geopolitical. A common currency would require a much deeper monetary and institutional framework, while interoperable national systems could be pursued incrementally. Fast-payment links might address some retail and commercial transactions first; CBDC connections could be explored alongside them. Neither route would eliminate exchange-rate risk or trade imbalances, but both could reduce the number of intermediaries involved in moving money.
The proposal also shows how the BRICS payments debate is shifting from slogans to infrastructure. The idea of challenging the dollar is politically prominent, but the operational questions are more specific: which systems will connect, who will govern them, how will currencies be converted, what rules will apply to transactions, and how will surplus balances be settled? The answers will determine whether the initiative becomes a functioning payments arrangement or remains a series of declarations and technical studies.
India’s likely message at the New Delhi summit is consequently narrower than the creation of a new BRICS currency. It is expected to favour stronger links between existing national payment systems, greater use of local currencies in trade and further discussion of CBDC interoperability. The Economic Times report said a high-level meeting was expected to examine possible mechanisms for digital currencies and increased intra-BRICS trade using national currencies, while noting that the final agenda remained pending.
What is established so far is that India opposes a common BRICS currency, the RBI has explored the possibility of linking national digital currencies, and BRICS members are discussing ways to reduce the cost of cross-border payments. What remains unresolved is the architecture, regulatory framework and settlement mechanism required to make such a system work. The summit’s agenda and any resulting official decision will indicate whether the proposal moves from exploratory discussions towards a formal intergovernmental project.
