India’s central bank is quietly pushing a plan that could reshape how emerging economies pay each other, and this move risks further aggravating an already jumpy White House. According to sources, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has proposed linking the official digital currencies of BRICS nations to speed up cross-border trade and tourism payments.
The idea is set to be pitched for inclusion on the agenda of the 2026 BRICS summit, which India will host later this year.
If approved, it would mark the first time BRICS leaders formally consider connecting their central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).
The bloc’s core members, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa are all running CBDC pilot programmes, even if none have fully rolled one out.
The proposal builds on the groundwork laid at the 2025 BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro, where members agreed to improve interoperability between national payment systems.
While the aim was practical rather than ideological - cheaper, faster transactions across borders – it also reduces reliance on the U.S. dollar, which officials insist is not the stated goal.
Washington is far from happy about the implication with U.S. President Donald Trump repeatedly branding BRICS “anti-American” and warning members against bypassing the dollar, threatening sweeping tariffs in response.
Blunt warnings by the U.S are a reminder that nothing calms global markets quite like tariff threats issued on instinct.
India, for its part, has been careful with its language, with the RBI saying that promoting the digital rupee internationally is about efficiency, not de-dollarisation.
However, as geopolitical tensions rise and trade relations with the U.S. remain strained, the timing of the proposal speaks for itself.
Behind the scenes, central bankers are well aware that linking CBDCs is easier said than done.
Interoperable technology, shared governance rules and mechanisms to deal with trade imbalances would all need agreement.
One option under discussion is the use of bilateral foreign exchange swap arrangements between central banks, with settlements conducted weekly or monthly.
Previous efforts by India and Russia to expand trade using local currencies ran into problems when Russia accumulated large rupee balances it struggled to spend.
India eventually allowed those funds to be invested in domestic bonds; however, the episode highlighted the complexity of settling uneven trade flows without a robust framework.
Meanwhile, China, which enters the discussion with the most advanced digital currency project, has pledged to expand the international use of the digital yuan and dominates activity on mBridge, a cross-border CBDC payments platform now run by participating central banks.
While this infrastructure is unlikely to usurp the dollar outright, it does offer an alternative route around dollar-centric systems in specific corridors.
While the broader BRICS bloc has also clearly expanded since it was founded in 2009, previous ambitions to turn BRICS into a unified economic counterweight - including a proposed common currency- have failed due to political realities and diverging national interests.
Globally, enthusiasm for CBDCs has cooled as stablecoins gain traction.
Meanwhile, India remains an outlier with the RBI continuing to promote the e-rupee as a regulated, sovereign alternative, encouraging adoption through offline payments, programmable transfers for government subsidies and partnerships with fintech firms.
Since its launch in December 2022, the e-rupee has attracted around seven million retail users.
Indian officials argue that stablecoins carry risks that CBDCs avoid, particularly for monetary control and financial stability.
The fear in New Delhi is that widespread stablecoin use could fragment domestic payment systems and weaken hard-won digital infrastructure.
Whether the BRICS digital currency link moves beyond discussion will depend on consensus, which is something this trading bloc has never found easy.
But the proposal signals a clear intent to modernise payments, hedge against geopolitical pressure and quietly build alternatives to a dollar-dominated system, even as Washington watches from across the table.
As RBI Deputy Governor T Rabi Sankar put it: “Beyond the facilitation of illicit payments and circumvention of control measures, stablecoins raise significant concerns for monetary stability, fiscal policy, banking intermediation and systemic resilience.”
