At the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) summit last year, the much-anticipated announcement of a common digital currency gave way to talk about using local currencies for cross border payments. Now BRICS has expanded from five to ten members and Russia is currently the organization Chair. Last week Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov discussed the topic saying that a common currency is not a current priority. On the other hand, he said it would be possible to move very quickly, implying a solution could be less than a year away.
After this year’s February BRICS meetings, Russia spoke about a BRICS Bridge platform for payments without mentioning digital currency. Two BRICS members, China and the UAE, are involved in mBridge the similarly named cross border central bank digital currency (CBDC) initiative. Using individual digital currencies for cross-border payments is a significantly different approach than using a common currency.
The Governor of the Bank of Russia, Elvira Nabiullina, has previously spoken about the complexity of creating a single BRICS currency. She made the comments before the BRICS membership expanded.
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