Should BRICS Members Adopt a Wholesale Digital Payment System?

Jeremy Srouji, Dominique Torre and Qing Xu
Additional contact information
Jeremy Srouji: International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Dominique Torre: Université Côte d'Azur, CNRS, GREDEG, France
Qing Xu: ICL, Junia, Université Catholique de Lille, LITL, Lille, France

No 2025-48, GREDEG Working Papers from Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France

Abstract: This article examines proposals to establish a BRICS Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) aimed at facilitating trade flows among the members, as part of their broader discussions around reforming the international monetary and financial system. It sets these proposals within the context of global CBDC efforts, South-South convergence processes and the challenges the BRICS have faced in navigating global geo-political tensions, while aligning national CBDC efforts with groupwide initiatives. We focus on a Brazilian proposal to establish a unified BRICS cross-border payment system, seen as a first step towards a full-fledged BRICS CBDC. Our main finding is that while this cross-border digital currency can be useful for smoothing payments and reducing the trade deficits of the smaller BRICS members, it does little to redress their asymmetric position vis-à-vis the larger country, China. The implication is that sustainable convergence among the grouping through the adoption of a unified cross-border currency would require a higher level of monetary and policy coordination than that set out in the Brazilian proposal.

Keywords: CBDC; BRICS; cross-border payments; international currency; international trade; stablecoins (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E12 F33 F36 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 36 pages
Date: 2025-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cis, nep-fdg, nep-mon and nep-pay
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://195.220.190.85/GREDEG-WP-2025-48.pdf First version (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gre:wpaper:2025-48

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in GREDEG Working Papers from Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Patrice Bougette ().