Proposed BRICS digital currency plan could reshape cross-border payments

Stephen Grootes speaks to Steven Boykey Sidley, partner at Bridge Capital about India’s central bank proposing closer links between BRICS nations’ official digital currencies, a move aimed at easing cross border trade and tourism payments.

Listen to the interview in the audio player below.

India’s central bank has proposed a plan that could change how money moves between some of the world’s largest emerging economies.

According to a report by Reuters, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) wants BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) to link their official digital currencies to make cross-border payments for trade and tourism faster, cheaper and simpler.

According to the report, the proposal has been recommended to the Indian government for inclusion on the agenda of the 2026 BRICS summit.

Each BRICS country is at a different stage of developing a central bank digital currency (CBDC), a digital version of a country’s official money, issued and controlled by its central bank.

India’s idea is to connect these digital currencies through a shared framework, allowing businesses and travellers to make payments directly between BRICS countries without relying heavily on the U.S. dollar or traditional international payment systems.

In practical terms, this could mean:

• Faster settlement of cross-border trade payments
• Lower transaction costs for companies and tourists
• Reduced dependence on intermediary banks and foreign currencies

Speaking to Stephen Grootes on The Money Show, Steven Boykey Sidley, partner at Bridge Capital says this is not likely to have a negative impact on the U.S dollar.

"The dollar will not be displaced. In fact, a surprising statistic, the dollar is more dominant now than it was one year ago. The second thing is that Trump said if anyone tries to de-dollarize100% tariffs."

- Steven Boykey Sidley, partner - Bridge Capital

"Even if it is implemented, even if in it's undefined current form, it's not going to have much impact."

- Steven Boykey Sidley, partner - Bridge Capital

"Various other countries are at various stages of experimenting, but the problem is in order to build these things, because we're a global world, we have to have interoperability rules between countries that have their own CBDC's, and we have none of that because inordinately and exuberantly complicated to do so..."

 - Steven Boykey Sidley, partner - Bridge Capital

Scroll to the top of the article to listen to the full interview.