Russian Finance Minister: BRICS working on own payment system

First posted at RT

The group’s members want to bypass “politicized” Western platforms, Anton Siluanov has told RT.

The BRICS countries are working to create their own international payments system.  The use of western infrastructure and platforms is increasingly being politicized, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told RT in an exclusive interview with RT Arabic on Wednesday. The unprecedented sanctions campaign against Moscow spearheaded by the US has forced Russia and other members of the economic group to look for ways to pursue trade despite the restrictions.

Siluanov said the new technologies will power the cross-border payment infrastructure, enabling faster and cheaper foreign trade financial transactions and free from external interference.

”Our task is to create an independent system of our own, given the… largely political decisions of the West,” said the minister, referring to the work undertaken by BRICS finance ministries and central banks.

”BRICS…is beyond politics, beyond any pressures and restrictions. It aims to stimulate economic growth and boost the income of our citizens,” the minister explained.  The new system will use national currencies and digital currencies.

Russia’s leading banks were excluded from the SWIFT international payment system in 2022 as part of sweeping sanctions that the west imposed on Moscow, over the Ukraine conflict.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced last month that the BRICS member countries were jointly developing a payment and settlement framework for trading within the bloc.

Russia will host the bloc’s annual summit later this month. The members are slated to approve a new status within the group – that of a BRICS partner country. More than 30 nations, including NATO member Türkiye, have applied to join the economic bloc.

According to Siluanov, the BRICS countries will continue to reduce the share of the US dollar in mutual settlements in favor of national currencies, and introduce digital financial assets in the future.

President Putin said in July that the pilot launch of the digital ruble, an electronic form of Russia’s national currency, had been successful. The Central Bank expects to expand the circulation of the digital ruble in July 2025.