The five nation BRICS grouping comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa will work on creating a payment system based on blockchain and digital technologies, a report by Russian News agency said.
“We believe that crating an independent BRICS Payment System is an important goal for the future which would be based on state-of-the-art tools such as digital technology and blockchain. The main thing to make sure it is convenient for governments, common people and businesses as well as cost effective and free of politics,” Kremlin aide Yurv Ushakov said the Russian media agency.
The effort is part of specific task for this year to increase the role of BRICS in the international payment monetary system. For sometime now, the BRICS grouping has been making efforts to reduce its reliance on US dollars in settlement, also called de-dollarisation.
The BRICS also welcomed its new members, Egypt, UAE, Iran, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia to join the de dollarisation drive while improving the international monetary and financial system.
“Work will continue to develop the Contingent Reserve Arrangement, primarily regarding use of currencies different from the US dollar,” Ushakov said. Last week another Russian media report said that the country’s finance ministry, the Russian bank and BRICS partners will create BRICS Bridge multisided payment platform in an effort to improve global monetary system.
Also, in February 2024, Klass Knot, the chair of Financial Stability Board which keeps an eye on the global financial systems wrote to the finance ministers of the G20 (Group of 20) countries that crypto assets, tokenisation and artificial intelligence remain priorities. Moscow is working on its digital ruble (CBDC) for some time now.
