India's BRICS play may have a payment plan with no hard cash

When BRICS leaders meet in New Delhi on September 12 and 13, India is unlikely to put its weight behind the headline-grabbing idea that has followed the grouping for years: a common BRICS currency that could challenge the US dollar.

Instead, New Delhi may have a different plan.

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India is likely to pitch seamless cross-border digital payments and greater adoption of central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, among BRICS members at the summit, The Economic Times reported on August 29, citing people familiar with the deliberations.

The report said a final call on which issues would be put before the leaders was yet to be taken.

A common BRICS currency would mean creating a new monetary unit for the grouping. Connecting CBDCs or fast-payment systems could allow countries to retain their rupees, yuan, roubles and other national currencies while making it easier to use them for cross-border transactions.

India opposes the first idea. It has been actively exploring the second.

India publicly says no to a BRICS currency

New Delhi made its position on a common currency explicit on August 7.

Speaking to reporters after the conclusion of a two-day meeting of BRICS trade and industry ministers in Jaipur, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said India did not support the introduction of a BRICS currency, PTI reported.

"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.

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The statement comes after earlier discussions over alternatives to the dollar have periodically surfaced within BRICS.

India, however, had been distancing itself from the idea well before Goyal's August comments.

On December 7, 2024, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said at an event in Doha that BRICS countries had no interest in weakening the US dollar, Reuters reported.

Jaishankar's remarks came just a week after Donald Trump, then the US President-elect, had threatened BRICS members with tariffs if they attempted to create a new currency or support another currency capable of replacing the dollar.

Trump’s warning

Trump first issued that warning in November 2024, weeks after winning the US presidential election.

He returned to the subject after taking office.

In January 2025, Trump repeated his threat to impose 100% tariffs on BRICS members if they created a common currency or backed another currency designed to replace the dollar, Reuters reported.

"We are going to require a commitment from these seemingly hostile Countries that they will neither create a new BRICS Currency, nor back any other Currency to replace the mighty U.S. Dollar or, they will face 100% Tariffs," Trump said on Truth Social.

"There is no chance that BRICS will replace the U.S. Dollar in International Trade, or anywhere else, and any Country that tries should say hello to Tariffs, and goodbye to America!," he added.

But while India has sought greater international use of the rupee, New Delhi and the RBI have maintained that those efforts are not aimed at de-dollarisation.

RBI's CBDC proposal

That is where the other BRICS money plan enters the picture.

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In January 2026, Reuters reported that the Reserve Bank of India had recommended to the Indian government that linking the central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) of BRICS countries be placed on the agenda for India's 2026 BRICS presidency.

According to the report, the RBI proposal envisaged connecting official digital currencies to make cross-border trade and tourism payments easier.

At that stage, this was an RBI recommendation to the government. It was not an approved BRICS proposal and no bloc-wide CBDC network had been agreed.

The proposal built on the declaration adopted at the BRICS Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 2025, which pushed for greater interoperability between members' payment systems to make cross-border transactions more efficient.

And it was very different from a common BRICS currency.

Instead of creating a new currency to replace the rupee, yuan or rouble, the idea was to investigate whether the digital versions of existing national currencies could work with one another.

What exactly is a CBDC?

A CBDC is sovereign currency issued electronically by a country's central bank.

India's version is the digital rupee, or e₹, whose retail pilot was launched by the RBI in December 2022. It should not be confused with Unified Payments Interface (UPI).

When someone sends Rs 500 through UPI, it acts as the payment rail through which money moves between bank accounts. The underlying money is a commercial bank deposit.

With a CBDC, the digital money being transferred is itself issued by the central bank.

Connecting CBDCs could therefore allow sovereign digital currencies to move between participating economies through interoperable systems. For a tourist or business, the attraction is potentially faster and cheaper international payments with fewer intermediaries.

RBI Governor confirms talks are underway

Nearly seven months after Reuters reported the RBI recommendation, RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra publicly confirmed that BRICS countries were discussing CBDCs and connections between fast-payment systems.

Speaking at an event in Mumbai on August 11, Malhotra said lowering the cost of international payments was an area of interest for BRICS.

"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, Reuters reported.

"Various options are on the table, but it is still at discussion stage, including CBDCs (central bank digital currencies) and linkages of fast payment systems," he added.

But how would a BRICS CBDC network actually work?

This is where the proposal gets technically harder.

Countries would have to make their different digital-currency systems interoperable and agree on technology, governance, regulation and how transactions are ultimately settled.

Reuters' January 2026 report, citing one of two sources familiar with the RBI proposal, said reluctance among countries to adopt technological platforms developed elsewhere could delay progress. Concrete movement would require consensus on both technology and regulation.

Then there is the problem of unequal trade.

India and Russia have already discovered the difficulty while trying to settle more trade in national currencies.

As India's imports from Russia surged following the Ukraine war, Russia accumulated large balances of Indian rupees. But because Russia was selling considerably more to India than it was buying, there were limited avenues for using all those rupees.

The RBI subsequently permitted such balances to be invested in Indian securities.

According to Reuters, bilateral foreign-exchange swaps between central banks were among the mechanisms being explored to deal with such imbalances. One of the sources cited by the news agency said weekly or monthly settlements through swaps were also being considered.

In other words, countries still have to decide what happens to the money when trade flows heavily in one direction.

The proposal moves closer to the summit

By the end of August, the discussion had moved closer to the political agenda.

The Economic Times reported on August 29, citing people familiar with the deliberations, that India was likely to pitch seamless cross-border digital payments and greater adoption of CBDCs among BRICS members at the September 12-13 summit.

The report said New Delhi was also seeking discussions on more balanced trade within BRICS and that a high-level meeting was expected to work through possible mechanisms for digital currencies and greater intra-BRICS trade using national currencies.

However, ET also reported that a final decision on which issues would be placed before BRICS leaders was still pending.

Russia says it isn't seeking de-dollarisation

Then came another important signal just four days before the summit.

On September 8, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters during a virtual interaction that Russia did not seek "de-dollarisation" and was open to every acceptable method of payment, Reuters reported.

Peskov nevertheless said some countries were using their national currencies as political tools, without naming them.

He also said 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.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will participate in the September 12-13 summit and hold bilateral talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

So, what could actually emerge from Delhi?

India appears to favour stronger links between national payment systems, greater trade settlement in local currencies and, potentially, CBDCs.

The details remain under discussion, but New Delhi’s position is clear: rather than create a BRICS currency, the bloc should make it easier to move the money its members already have.