What is BRICS Pay, and can it rival the West’s SWIFT payments system?
BRICS Pay is a decentralised digital system for making international payments in currencies other than the dollar.
The central theme of the BRICS bloc of nations is to push back against the global economic dominance of Western countries. That core value was very much at the centre of this year’s 18th BRICS Summit, which took place last week in India.
At the September 12 and 13 summit in New Delhi, leaders committed to expanding local currency trading systems and cross-border payment systems by investing in BRICS Pay, an initiative of the BRICS Business Council.
“We acknowledge the work done to study the cross-border interoperability of payment and messaging channels, and the discussions on promoting trade settlements and investments using BRICS local currencies, while respecting national priorities and acknowledging that there is no one-size-fits-all approach,” leaders said in a joint declaration as the summit concluded.
While BRICS Pay has yet to become fully operational, most transactions between countries, companies and even tourists take place through Western cross-border payments like SWIFT.