In a bid to circumvent Western sanctions while reducing reliance on the US dollar, BRICS members repeatedly called to develop an alternative international payment system that will challenge the SWIFT bank messaging system with their own network.
Russia was the latest one to reiterate the call last month during the BRICS Summit in Kazam, after which the member countries encouraged the “strengthening of correspondent banking networks within BRICS and enabling settlements in local currencies in line with BRICS Cross-Border Payments Initiative (BCBPI)” in its joint declaration.
First proposed in 2018 and known as BRICS Pay, this initiative is “decentralized, independent payment messaging mechanism system for BRICS nations to trade with each other through their own currencies” and among those that have already signed up to support it are Bank of China, WeChat, Brazil’s Banco do Brasil and Caixa, Punjab National Bank, the Bank of India and Alipay.
On top of the strong motive, BRICS members already have the infrastructure necessary to build the system using as foundations Russia’s Mir network, India’s Unified Payment Interface, and China’s WePay and AliPay.
They’d be able to trade in their own currency – avoiding the dollar- by using the UPI and WePay’s technology, including QR code payments, digital wallets and framework to get direct link to local banks.
