India is set to press for interoperability among BRICS members’ central bank digital currencies at the 18th BRICS summit in New Delhi on Sept. 12-13, while stopping short of backing a unified payments and settlement network that could be viewed as a direct challenge to SWIFT and the U.S. dollar, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
According to the report, Prime Minister Narendra Modi favors bilateral CBDC settlement for trade between member countries. A single payments system covering the entire BRICS bloc is now unlikely to win agreement at the New Delhi gathering.
CBDC links move ahead while a bloc-wide network is put aside
BRICS currently includes 11 full members and 10 partner countries, spanning major economies such as China, Russia, India, and South Africa. The group has spent years looking for ways to connect its payments infrastructure and reduce reliance on the SWIFT network.
That push gained momentum after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, when several Russian banks were removed from SWIFT. The episode sharpened concerns across BRICS about the political risk tied to dependence on a single global settlement system.
Bloomberg said the people familiar with the matter described India’s position as a more cautious one. Instead of building a unified settlement rail that might be interpreted as a move against SWIFT, New Delhi prefers direct links between member states’ own CBDCs for bilateral cross-border transactions. The aim, according to the report, is to cut reliance on the banking system and lower transaction costs.
India is also pushing the use of local currencies in trade settlement, replacing older patterns that relied on third-party currencies such as the dollar.
Official comments stay guarded as local-currency trade expands
The Reserve Bank of India did not respond to Bloomberg’s request for comment. Indian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jaiswal said meetings among finance ministers and central bank governors had begun on Wednesday and that it was too early to draw conclusions about the discussions. He urged media outlets to wait for the joint statement and said India’s approach within the BRICS framework is development-oriented, with a focus on concrete measures that support trade and economic linkages.
On the ground, though, local-currency settlement has moved faster than official messaging suggests. Nosov, Sberbank’s India head, told Bloomberg that about 96% of trade between India and Russia is already settled through rupee-ruble mechanisms. Russian news agency Interfax separately reported that trade between China and Russia is now almost entirely denominated in yuan and rubles.
India’s own digital rupee, the e₹, is already in the pilot stage. China and Russia are also testing their own CBDCs. Bloomberg reported that BRICS leaders including Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping may also discuss linking national instant mobile payment systems for small retail transactions.
India seeks to avoid an anti-dollar label
People familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that India’s caution reflects a clear political calculation. New Delhi is concerned that supporting a unified BRICS payments network could lead outsiders to cast the group as openly anti-dollar or anti-Western, an image India wants to avoid.
The report noted that Donald Trump had previously said BRICS members would face 100% tariffs if the bloc tried to replace the dollar’s role. In July 2025, he also said countries that align with what he described as anti-American BRICS policies would face an additional 10% tariff. Bloomberg said that backdrop helps explain why India has been careful with its summit language, steering away from talk of a common BRICS currency or an anti-dollar agenda and instead framing local-currency settlement around diversification and resilience.
Economist says local-currency settlement can preserve dollar reserves
Sonal Varma, a Singapore-based economist at Nomura, told Bloomberg that for countries like India, expanding local-currency trade settlement can provide a buffer against sharp swings in global capital flows.
「Local currency settlement helps preserve scarce dollar reserves for strategic imports, while allowing routine trade finance to take place in local currency,」 she said.
As described in the report, India is not looking for a monetary revolution at this stage. Its preferred route, based on CBDC interoperability, is a more pragmatic form of risk management that sits between the dollar-based system and the politics surrounding de-dollarization.