By Jaspreet Kalra and Nikunj Ohri
MUMBAI/NEW DELHI, Jan 19 (Reuters) – India’s central bank has proposed that BRICS countries link their official digital currencies to facilitate cross-border trade and tourist payments, two sources said, which could reduce reliance on the U.S. dollar as geopolitical tensions rise.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has recommended to the government that a proposal to connect central bank digital currencies (CBDC) be on the agenda of the 2026 BRICS summit, sources said. They requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
India will host the summit, which will be held later this year. If the recommendation is accepted, a proposal to connect digital currencies of BRICS members will be put forward for the first time. The BRICS organization includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, among others.
The initiative could irritate the US, which has warned against any moves to bypass the dollar.
US President Donald Trump has previously called the BRICS alliance “anti-American” and threatened to impose tariffs on its members.
The RBI, India’s central government and the central banks of China, Brazil and Russia did not respond to emails seeking comment. The South African central bank declined to comment.
RBI’s proposal to link BRICS CBDCs to finance cross-border trade and tourism has not been previously reported.
BUILDING BRIDGES
The RBI proposal is based on a 2025 declaration at a BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro, which promoted interoperability between members’ payment systems to make cross-border transactions more efficient.
The RBI has publicly expressed its interest in linking India’s digital rupee with other nations’ CBDCs to speed up cross-border transactions and strengthen the global use of its currency. However, he said his efforts to promote the global use of the rupee were not aimed at promoting de-dollarization.
While none of the BRICS members have fully launched their digital currencies, all five core members have piloted projects.
India’s digital currency – called the e-rupee – has attracted a total of 7 million retail users since its launch in December 2022, while China has pledged to boost international use of the digital yuan.
The RBI has encouraged e-rupee adoption by enabling offline payments, providing programmability for government subsidy transfers and allowing fintech firms to offer digital currency wallets.
For BRICS digital currency ties to succeed, items such as interoperable technology, governance rules and ways to address imbalanced trade volumes would be among the topics of discussion, one of the sources said.