India is heading into the September 12-13 BRICS summit with a clear preference: interoperability over a shared currency. Officials and policy watchers say New Delhi is unlikely to endorse any proposal for a common BRICS unit of account or currency, and will instead press for tighter links between national payment rails and central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, to make cross-border transactions faster, cheaper and less dependent on the dollar-centric plumbing that still dominates global trade.
The distinction matters. A common currency would require a level of macroeconomic alignment, fiscal trust and political convergence that BRICS members have never demonstrated. By contrast, connecting existing systems — such as India's Unified Payments Interface, other domestic instant-payment networks, and emerging CBDC platforms — offers a narrower but more achievable path. It would allow exporters, importers and eventually consumers to settle transactions across borders with lower fees and fewer intermediaries, without surrendering monetary sovereignty.
Payment Rails First
India's position is consistent with its broader approach to BRICS: support practical cooperation, resist symbolic leaps. New Delhi has repeatedly signalled that it sees value in trade facilitation, local-currency settlement and digital payment connectivity, but not in a new supranational currency that could expose the bloc to political disputes and technical fragmentation. For an economy as large and policy-sensitive as India's, the risks of a common currency far outweigh the benefits at this stage.
The Reserve Bank of India has already been pushing the idea of CBDC interoperability, a crucial technical step if cross-border digital settlement is to move beyond pilot projects. Interoperability would allow different sovereign digital currencies to communicate securely, much as payment networks do today. In theory, that could reduce settlement times from days to minutes and cut correspondent banking costs, a meaningful gain for manufacturers, auto component suppliers and EV-linked supply chains that depend on timely payments across borders.
That promise is especially relevant for India's automotive and mobility ecosystem, where cross-border sourcing is routine. From imported battery materials to exported components and software-enabled mobility services, the sector relies on efficient trade settlement. Faster payment infrastructure could lower working-capital stress for smaller suppliers and improve competitiveness in markets where margins are tight and currency volatility can quickly erode profits.
Tariffs And Trade Pressure
The geopolitical backdrop is sharpening the debate. Donald Trump's tariff threats have revived concerns about protectionism and the vulnerability of export-oriented economies to abrupt policy shifts in the United States. For India, that makes the search for alternative trade settlement mechanisms more attractive, but not enough to justify a leap into a common BRICS currency. The more immediate objective is resilience: ensuring that trade can continue smoothly even if external pressures intensify.
At the same time, India is wary of being seen as endorsing a project that could be interpreted as overtly anti-dollar or politically confrontational. BRICS has expanded its profile in recent years, but its members remain diverse in economic structure, inflation dynamics and strategic priorities. That diversity is precisely why a common currency remains a distant proposition. Without shared monetary policy, common fiscal rules or a credible central authority, the concept is more slogan than system.
Technical hurdles are equally significant. Cross-border payment links require agreement on standards, compliance, data governance, anti-money-laundering safeguards and dispute resolution. CBDCs add another layer of complexity, including privacy design, exchange-rate conversion and cybersecurity. Even if political consensus exists, the plumbing will take time. India's preference for incrementalism reflects a recognition that payment architecture can be built faster than trust.
Sovereignty Over Symbolism
For New Delhi, the calculus is straightforward. A common BRICS currency would create new dependencies and expose India to policy choices made elsewhere. Payment interoperability, by contrast, preserves national control while still delivering efficiency gains. It also aligns with India's broader digital public infrastructure model, which has become a reference point for other emerging economies.
The likely outcome at the summit is therefore not a dramatic monetary announcement, but a more technical agenda: pilots, standards, and frameworks for connecting payment systems and digital currencies. That may sound less ambitious than a new BRICS currency, but it is far more likely to survive contact with reality. In a bloc defined as much by divergence as by cooperation, India appears to be betting that the future of trade finance will be built on links, not on a single hard-cash promise.