The pitch is ambitious. Sanjay Malhotra, governor of the Reserve Bank of India, told an audience in Mumbai on August 11 that BRICS nations are actively exploring how to connect their central bank digital currencies and instant payments systems — a move that could reshape how billions of dollars move across some of the world’s fastest-growing economies.
The goal, pretty much as Malhotra framed it, is cost. Cross-border payments between BRICS countries are expensive, slow, and riddled with friction. Banks charge heavy fees. Settlement can take days. And for businesses or individuals sending money between, say, India and Brazil, the experience is often painful. Malhotra put a spotlight on the group’s shared interest in cutting those costs down, though he stopped well short of announcing any firm plan. No timeline. No specific mechanism. Just a clear signal that the conversation is happening at the highest levels of BRICS central banking.
Not exactly a done deal.
Which Countries Are at the Table
BRICS currently includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — five economies that collectively account for a huge chunk of global trade. Each country has its own domestic payments infrastructure, its own regulatory framework, and its own CBDC development at varying stages. China’s digital yuan is probably the furthest along. India has been running pilots with its digital rupee. Others are at earlier stages. Getting all of these systems to talk to each other is a serious technical and political lift.
And that’s before you even get to the regulatory side. Linking payment rails across five jurisdictions means five sets of financial regulators need to agree on rules, data standards, settlement finality, and anti-money-laundering requirements. That’s not a weekend project. The discussions are still early, and no one has laid out a roadmap yet.
But the appetite seems real.
Why This Matters for Crypto and Digital Finance
For the broader digital asset world, a BRICS CBDC linkage would be a big deal. State-backed digital currencies have sometimes been framed as rivals to decentralized crypto — and in some ways they are. But a functioning cross-border CBDC network among five major economies would also validate the core argument that blockchain-adjacent infrastructure can do things traditional correspondent banking can’t. Faster settlement. Programmable transactions. Lower intermediary costs.
It’s worth remembering that the current correspondent banking system wasn’t built for speed. It was built for control. A transaction from Mumbai to São Paulo today might pass through three or four correspondent banks, each taking a cut, each adding latency. If BRICS nations can genuinely link their instant payments systems — think India’s UPI, for instance — and layer CBDC rails on top, the efficiency gains could be substantial. That’s not an invented number. That’s just the math of cutting out middlemen.
Malhotra didn’t get into the technical architecture during the Mumbai event. Unclear whether the group is looking at a hub-and-spoke model, bilateral linkages, or something else entirely. Those details matter enormously for how this would actually function in practice.
The discussions are still preliminary. Technical and regulatory aspects haven’t been detailed publicly. Further approvals are needed before anything moves to implementation.
So it’s early. Very early.
What Comes Next for BRICS Digital Finance
The BRICS group has been pushing financial cooperation harder in recent years, partly as a response to dollar dominance in global trade and partly because the member nations genuinely want cheaper, faster ways to settle transactions among themselves. The CBDC and instant payments discussion fits squarely into that broader agenda.
Whether it actually gets built is a different question. International payment system integrations have a long history of taking far longer than announced, running into political headwinds, or quietly dying in committee. The technical challenges are real. So are the sovereignty concerns — no central bank loves the idea of another country’s regulator having visibility into its payment flows.
But Malhotra’s comments carry weight. He’s not a junior official floating a trial balloon. He’s the governor of one of the world’s largest central banks, speaking at a formal event, putting the initiative on the record. That’s a meaningful step.
For now, the BRICS nations are committed to exploring feasibility. Further technical and regulatory discussions are expected. No specific timeline has been provided. And the exact mechanisms for linking the systems remain under discussion, pending further agreements.
What Malhotra said in Mumbai on August 11 is probably the most concrete public statement yet on where this is heading — and even that was careful, measured, and light on specifics. The ambition is clear. The path isn’t.
Frequently Asked Questions
What did India’s Reserve Bank governor say about BRICS CBDCs?
Sanjay Malhotra, governor of the Reserve Bank of India, said on August 11 in Mumbai that BRICS nations are exploring linking their central bank digital currencies and instant payments systems to reduce cross-border payment costs.
Which countries are part of the BRICS CBDC discussion?
The BRICS group involved in these discussions includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.
