18th BRICS Summit: Members Move Toward ‘BRICS Digital Payments Grid’ to Boost Local Currencies
NEW DELHI: Marking a tectonic shift in the global financial order,the 18th annual BRICS Summit concluded in New Delhi with a historic economic declaration aimed at dismantling the global hegemony of the US dollar. In a highly coordinated closing session hosted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, the expanded 11-nation bloc officially ratified the deployment of the highly anticipated ‘BRICS Digital Payments Grid’ (BRICS Pay). This unified cross-border financial mechanism is specifically engineered to bypass traditional Western-dominated banking systems like SWIFT.
Addressing the final plenary assembly, Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasized that this multi-lateral payment infrastructure is not designed as an adversarial tool against any specific western power, but rather as an empowering vehicle to ensure economic sovereignty for the Global South. Under this operational protocol, member states will seamlessly settle billions of dollars in mutual trade, energy contracts, and strategic investments using local sovereign currencies-such as the Indian Rupee, Russian Ruble, and Chinese Yuan-entirely eliminating exchange vulnerabilities linked to the US greenback.