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Informist, Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026                                                                             

By Priyasmita Dutta and Sagar Sen

 

MUMBAI – As New Delhi gears up for the BRICS Summit at the end of the week, a top official at the Ministry of External Affairs said a designated "BRICS currency" is "entirely out of the picture". The member nations are aligned on improving interoperability of their payment systems and on streamlining norms for investments in government bonds and foreign exchange markets to make inter-country trading and reporting easier and smoother, the official said.

 

"We cannot pursue BRICS currency anymore, and we don't have to when we can all use interoperable payment services," the official told Informist. "If cross-border settlements can be done in local currency, and if cross-border fast payments can be done via UPI...it serves the purpose," the official said at the sidelines of Global Fintech Festival by 2026. "The broad agenda is internationalisation of the rupee," the official added.

 

India currently holds the BRICS presidency. The bloc's other founding members are Brazil, Russia, China, and South Africa. The other member nations of the bloc are Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The bloc aims to promote unified emerging economic perspectives in multilateral forums. At the previous summit in 2025, the bloc had resolved to increase interoperability of its payment systems to make cross-border transactions more efficient. 

 

India's current efforts for interoperability is not aimed at de-dollarisation but at promoting cross-border settlements without relying on any one reserve currency, the official said. US President Donald Trump last year threatened to take action against the bloc if it made any move to bypass the dollar. The main purpose of rupee internationalisation is to insulate the Indian economy from market volatility and the challenges posed by geopolitical instability. 

 

India has already entered local currency settlement arrangements with some countries. However, a standardised common framework for central bank digital currencies will pave the way for a systemic shift towards a more localised settlement ecosystem. This will help bring CBDCs of different BRICS nations under a common architecture, the official said. 

 

The RBI had launched wholesale CBDC in November 2022, designed for use by financial institutions and intermediaries, primarily to streamline interbank settlements and large-value transactions. Wholesale CBDC focuses on improving the financial system's infrastructure and reducing settlement risks, while retail CBDC aims to enhance accessibility, financial inclusion, and convenience for individuals or businesses. India has already signed agreements with countries including the UAE, Singapore, and Vietnam to promote CBDC-based payments.  

 

According to the official, the BRICS nations are also working on making participation of the member nations in government securities market and foreign exchange markets more frictionless. It has been a long-standing demand from foreign portfolio investors to make processes to make investments in India's government bond market seamless. In the last few months, regulators and the government has taken measures to ease the compliance burden for FPIs to invest in gilts. 

 

The latest round of regulatory ease includes the Securities and Exchanges Board of India exempting foreign investors investing solely in government securities through a fully accessible route from furnishing investor group details.  

 

The official said a more synchronised governance across BRICS nations will boost FPI inflows from the member countries. "At the Summit, we expect finer discussions on the matter including clearing houses, settlement timings, among others," the official said. "The clearing houses will also have to agree to the framework to make this a success." 

 

To be sure, the official said a framework providing easier access to government bonds and forex markets will govern all BRICS nations, and not just India. "For that, we need consensus from all the member nations and we are hopeful that they will agree on a holistic framework that will open up our markets to each other," the official added.  End

 

Edited by Deepshikha Bhardwaj

 

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