India Pushes BRICS CBDC Link to Boost Cross-Border Payments

• The central bank of India has also indicated interest in associating the digital rupee with other CBDCs.
• None of the core members of BRICS, which includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, has completely rolled out a CBDC. 

The central bank of India has plans for BRICS members to associate their official digital currencies, targeting to make cross-border trade and tourism payments swifter as geopolitics toughens and more countries seek rails that depend less on the US dollar. 

On January 19, Reuters reported that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has suggested that the government position a CBDC connectivity proposal on the agenda for the 2026 BRICS summit, which India will be hosting. 

Talking about crypto markets, the pitch comes in a familiar spot. Payments infrastructure is not a strategic battleground, and tokenised money, whether state-issued CBDCs or privately issued stablecoins, now stands at the core of the debate on the topic of speed, cost and control. 

The plan could still make the scenario chill, as US President Donald Trump has mentioned the bloc as anti-American and has frightened tariffs on BRICS members. The plan of RBI was created on language from the 2025 BRICS Rio de Janeiro declaration, which supported wider interoperability between the payment systems of members to initiate cross-border transactions more easily. 

India and its Plans

The central bank of India has also indicated interest in associating the digital rupee with other CBDCs, showing it as a way to accelerate cross-border payments and widen the usage of the rupee, as per the report. 

It has pressed that its shift to widen the global use of the rupee is not planned to influence de-dollarisation. None of the core members of BRICS, which includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, has completely rolled out a CBDC, and every one is still running pilots. 

The e-rupee pilot of India has attained around 7 million retail users since December 2022. Implementation also clings to hard choices that crypto makers will identify, shared technical standards, governance rules and a mechanism to settle trade imbalances that can make up when one side exports more than it imports. 

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