BRICS finance ministers and central-bank governors have called for practical solutions to make cross-border payments faster, cheaper and safer, while encouraging greater use of members’ national currencies for trade and investment. The group has also been working on interoperability between payment and messaging systems. India is bringing a particularly interesting proposition to that conversation: UPI and the broader idea of interoperable digital payment infrastructure.
Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal has urged BRICS members and partner countries to link their payment systems, trade in one another’s local currencies and make digital trade more accessible. India says UPI is already accepted in 11 countries. This is sometimes described simply as “de-dollarisation”. That description is too simplistic. What is emerging in Delhi is potentially more subtle: a financial system in which the dollar remains important, but is no longer the only practical bridge between major emerging economies.
The Geopolitics of the BRICS Photograph
The summit itself tells us something about the changing international system. Xi Jinping has arrived in India for his first visit in seven years, at a time when New Delhi and Beijing are cautiously attempting to stabilise relations after the tensions that followed the 2020 border clash. Vladimir Putin is also in Delhi, while Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is participating as Iran's BRICS membership gives Tehran another major multilateral platform.
For India, this creates an unusual diplomatic tableau. The country is sitting at the same table with China and Russia while maintaining deep relationships with the United States, Europe, Japan, the Gulf and other partners. The Modi–Pezeshkian interaction is particularly significant because India and Iran have important interests in connectivity, energy, trade and regional stability. During their meeting, Modi reiterated India's position that issues in West Asia should be resolved through dialogue and diplomacy, while stressing freedom of navigation, commerce and the safety of seafarers.
The Putin meeting covered political, economic, defence, energy, space and other areas of bilateral cooperation. And Xi's presence carries its own weight. The photographs therefore matter, but not because India is suddenly choosing one geopolitical camp. They show something else. India increasingly wants to be comfortable in rooms where competing powers are present simultaneously. That diplomatic positioning is directly connected to the economic conversation taking place alongside the summit.
The More Important Conversation May Be Happening in Payments
UPI is no longer merely an Indian domestic payments success story. At the BRICS Business Forum, Piyush Goyal highlighted India's digital public infrastructure and called on BRICS countries to connect their payment systems. He also advocated greater trade in members' local currencies. The idea is relatively straightforward. Today, international trade can involve multiple layers of banks, correspondent banking relationships, foreign-exchange conversions and settlement systems. For two countries trading heavily with each other, that can add cost and complexity. What if their payment systems could communicate directly? What if an Indian business could pay a Chinese supplier using a mechanism that settles efficiently between the rupee and yuan? Or an Indian importer could settle a Russian transaction through rupee-ruble arrangements? Or a Brazilian and Indian company could transact through interoperable payment infrastructure rather than relying on several intermediaries?
That is the broad direction behind the BRICS discussions. The bloc's finance officials have acknowledged ongoing work on cross-border payment and messaging interoperability and encouraged the BRICS Payment Task Force to continue developing practical solutions. India's advantage is that it already has a payment infrastructure that operates at enormous scale. The Financial Times reports that UPI and Brazil's Pix together processed more than $10 trillion in transactions over the previous 18 months, although cross-border usage remains comparatively small. UPI alone has more than 550 million users. That makes UPI an attractive piece of India's BRICS proposition. But there is an important distinction: UPI is a payment system, not a currency. Connecting payment systems does not automatically mean eliminating the dollar.
As Modi hosts Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and Iran’s Masoud Pezeshkian in New Delhi, BRICS is pushing cross-border payments and local-currency trade. The ambition is not necessarily to replace the dollar, but to give emerging economies more ways to trade without relying on it.
By Geopolitical Analysis Desk, The Centre
12 September 2026 • 05:56 PM IST • 6 min read
The most striking images from the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi are political: Narendra Modi with Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and Iran’s Masoud Pezeshkian. But beneath the handshakes and diplomatic photographs, something potentially more consequential is being discussed. Money.
Rupee, Yuan, Ruble, Rand and Real
This is where the “BRICS currency” narrative needs to be handled carefully. There has been speculation for years about a common BRICS currency that could challenge the US dollar. India has not embraced that idea. Instead, New Delhi has been advocating mechanisms that allow countries to continue using their own currencies while making cross-border payments easier. That means the architecture could involve:
India — Rupee
China — Yuan
Russia — Ruble
South Africa — Rand
Brazil — Real
The objective would not necessarily be to create one new BRICS currency. It would be to make it easier for existing currencies to interact.
India has also explored the possibility of linking central-bank digital currencies and fast-payment systems. The Reserve Bank of India has indicated that CBDCs and fast-payment linkages are among the options being discussed within BRICS. The distinction is important. A common currency would require BRICS countries to surrender a significant degree of monetary autonomy. Interoperable payment systems do not. Each country can retain its own currency, monetary policy and financial institutions while making international transactions more efficient.
The BRICS finance track has explicitly acknowledged that there is “no one-size-fits-all approach” to local-currency settlement And there is another reality that cannot be ignored. Trade does not always balance. India's experience with Russia illustrates the problem. If India imports substantially more from Russia than it exports, Russia can accumulate large rupee balances. Those rupees then need somewhere to go. So replacing the dollar isn't simply a technological problem. It is also a trade-balance, convertibility, liquidity and settlement problem. Technology can make payment easier. It cannot magically make unequal trade disappear.
Is BRICS Really Trying to Kill the Dollar?
This is where the political rhetoric can become misleading. Russia and Iran have strong reasons to favour financial mechanisms that reduce their exposure to Western sanctions and dollar-based financial infrastructure. Other BRICS members also want greater monetary and financial autonomy. But that does not mean every BRICS country wants to destroy the dollar-based system. India's position is considerably more pragmatic. The current initiative is about choice.
If a country can trade with another major economy directly in its own currency, why should every transaction necessarily require conversion through the dollar? That does not make the dollar irrelevant. It simply creates an alternative route. Even Russia has recently signalled that the issue is not necessarily about eliminating the dollar altogether. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia was not seeking “de-dollarisation” and was open to acceptable payment methods, while saying that a large share of Russia's transactions with BRICS countries already take place in national currencies.
The Financial Times similarly notes that the practical challenge is substantial: incompatible currency systems, capital controls and trade imbalances remain obstacles to deeper integration. So the more accurate description is not: “BRICS is replacing the dollar.”
It is: “BRICS is trying to reduce the number of transactions that necessarily need the dollar.” That is a much more realistic and potentially much more consequential, objective.
The Centre's View: The Dollar May Not Be Replaced. But Its Monopoly Can Be Challenged.
The most interesting thing happening in Delhi may therefore not be the creation of a new currency at all. It may be the construction of financial alternatives around existing currencies. For decades, the international financial system has operated through a deeply entrenched dollar-centred architecture. The dollar's dominance is supported not simply by American economic power, but by deep capital markets, liquidity, financial institutions, trade practices and global confidence.
That cannot be dismantled by a BRICS declaration. Nor can it be replaced simply by connecting UPI with another country's payment system. But something else can happen. Countries can gradually acquire more choices. India can continue trading with the United States in dollars while developing rupee-based mechanisms with Russia. China can continue participating in the dollar-based global economy while expanding yuan settlement. Brazil can promote the real. South Africa can promote the rand. And BRICS can attempt to make the infrastructure connecting these currencies faster and cheaper.
The Centre's view: this is where India's approach is particularly interesting. India does not need to declare war on the dollar. It does not need a BRICS currency. It does not need to choose between Washington, Moscow and Beijing. It can instead build systems that increase India's economic room for manoeuvre. That is consistent with the broader diplomatic picture emerging from New Delhi this weekend.
Modi can meet Xi. He can meet Putin. He can warmly engage Pezeshkian. He can promote UPI and local-currency trade. And India can simultaneously maintain its relationships with the Western financial and economic system. That is not necessarily contradiction. It is strategic autonomy translated into economic infrastructure. The future may therefore not be a world without the dollar. It may be a world in which countries increasingly have a choice about when they need it. And if India succeeds in making UPI or technology derived from the same philosophy, a meaningful part of that alternative architecture, the significance will extend well beyond BRICS. The battle may not be over which currency replaces the dollar.
It may be over who controls the infrastructure through which the next generation of global trade moves.
