BRICS member states to consider creating common digital payment platform

Moscow: The Russian Finance Ministry together with the Bank of Russia and BRICS partners will prepare a number of initiatives to improve the international monetary and financial system, which will focus in particular on the issue of creating the BRICS Bridge multisided payment platform, according to files published following the first meeting of BRICS finance ministers and central banks governors in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

"By the end of the year, the Russian Finance Ministry and the Bank of Russia together with partners within the [BRICS] association will draft a report for the leaders of the BRICS countries on improving the international monetary and financial system, which will contain a set of initiatives and recommendations. Developmental work based on the report will result in a number of practical initiatives, with the BRICS Bridge platform potentially becoming one of them. The issue is about creating a multi-sided digital payment platform. It will help bring the financial markets of the BRICS member states closer and increase mutual trade turnover," according to files released on the ministry’s website.

Moreover, achieving an increase in the share of national currencies used in mutual settlements and creating equally accessible, independent financial infrastructure have been given particular emphasis for cooperation among BRICS members. "The gradual integration of the new BRICS member states into the work of the financial tracks and strengthening of cooperation at the expert level was noted as being one of the crucial tasks for 2024," the ministry said.

On 27 February 2024, the finance ministers and central bank governors of the BRICS member states met on the sidelines of the G20 ministerial meeting in Sao Paulo. It was the first face-to-face meeting held under the BRICS financial track with the participation of representatives of the five countries that became full-fledged BRICS members on 1 January 2024.

At the meeting, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov and Bank of Russia First Deputy Governor Vladimir Chistyukhin presented the main priority for work on the BRICS financial track, as well as the overriding theme of Russia’s chairmanship: improving the international monetary and financial system.