India pushes BRICS digital currency link despite hurdles

India wants to rewire how BRICS nations pay each other, and it has a window to make it happen. As the bloc’s chair for 2026, New Delhi is pushing a proposal to link the central bank digital currencies of member states, with a formal discussion scheduled for the leaders’ summit on September 12-13 in New Delhi. The proposal, first floated by the Reserve Bank of India in January 2026, is straightforward in concept: let India’s e-rupee, China’s digital yuan, Russia’s digital ruble, and Brazil’s Drex talk to each other directly. Trade settlements and tourism payments could then flow between countries in local currencies, skipping the dollar as the middleman. What India is actually proposing This is not a BRICS super-currency. Indian authorities have been careful to frame the initiative as a plumbing upgrade, not a geopolitical statement. India is also steering away from anything resembling a unified BRICS payment network. New Delhi favors limited bilateral linkages precisely because a bloc-wide system would invite comparisons to SWIFT and draw sharper scrutiny from Washington. The 2025 BRICS summit declaration had already endorsed greater interoperability among member payment systems, s...