BRICS Agrees to Settle More Trade in Its Own Currencies and Link Payment Systems

The 18th BRICS summit closed in New Delhi with a declaration whose economic core is narrow and concrete. Members committed to expanding trade and investment settled in their own national currencies, and to connecting their domestic payment and messaging systems so transactions can clear without passing through the dollar. The text does not endorse a common BRICS currency, an idea India has consistently resisted.

Chinese President Xi Jinping used the meeting to propose that China lead an open-source zone for artificial intelligence across the 11-member group, covering large language models, training, and shared research, along with a call for a consensus-based global governance framework for the technology.

Indian coverage treated the outcome as a diplomatic success for the host. The Hindu described New Delhi's role as mediating between rival members and pushing for reform of global governance institutions. BBC Hindi took a different view, reporting that the war involving Iran revealed real divisions in the group, with members agreeing that a new global order is needed but unable to agree on what should replace the current one or how to get there.

Both accounts can be true at once. Payment infrastructure is where currency systems actually change, and it changes slowly, through bilateral settlement lines and message routing rather than through declarations. What matters is not whether the bloc reaches unanimous agreement, but whether the share of BRICS trade invoiced outside the dollar keeps rising while members disagree about everything else.