India Pushes BRICS to Link Payment Systems and Expand Trade in Local Currencies

India has proposed deeper financial integration among BRICS economies by linking their national payment systems and expanding the use of local currencies in cross-border trade, potentially reducing transaction costs and dependence on traditional international payment channels.

Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal, addressing the BRICS Business Forum 2026 in New Delhi on September 11, urged BRICS member and partner countries to connect their payment networks, simplify regulations and make digital trade easier across borders.

Goyal pointed to India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) as an example of digital public infrastructure that could support greater international payment connectivity. UPI has grown from a domestic instant-payment platform into an increasingly international system and is now operational for payment acceptance or cross-border remittances in 11 countries.

These are the United Arab Emirates, France, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Singapore, Mauritius, Qatar, Cambodia, Greece and the Maldives.

India’s proposal does not necessarily envisage replacing national currencies with a common BRICS currency. Instead, the approach would allow businesses and individuals to increasingly settle transactions using their own currencies while connecting domestic digital-payment networks.

Such an arrangement could, for example, make it easier for an Indian exporter and a buyer in another BRICS economy to conduct transactions without every payment necessarily having to pass through a third-country currency or multiple financial intermediaries.

UPI Becomes Part of India’s BRICS Economic Pitch

UPI’s rapid expansion gives India an existing technological platform around which it can promote international payment cooperation.

Government data released in August showed that UPI accounted for about 49 per cent of global real-time payment transaction volume in 2025. During FY2025-26, the platform handled more than 24,162 crore transactions, compared with just 1.78 crore transactions in FY2016-17.

The network has also gradually moved beyond simple merchant acceptance overseas. India has established cross-border payment connections in several countries, including the UPI-PayNow linkage with Singapore, while Greece and the Maldives became the latest additions to UPI’s international footprint in 2026.

Goyal suggested that BRICS countries could build on such systems by linking their own payment infrastructure.

Local-Currency Trade Gets Fresh Push

Alongside digital-payment connectivity, India is pushing for greater settlement of trade in the currencies of participating countries.

Greater use of local currencies could give companies another option for settling transactions, potentially lowering conversion costs and making trade less vulnerable to disruptions in international payment channels.

The proposal fits into a wider BRICS effort to strengthen economic links between members while retaining their respective national financial systems.

Goyal also called for BRICS economies to open markets to one another, reduce non-tariff barriers and accelerate customs and regulatory clearances.

He highlighted raw materials and critical minerals as areas where reliable two-way trade would be particularly important, arguing that resilient supply chains cannot operate in only one direction.

India also sees the BRICS market as an important destination for its manufactured products, including engineering goods, electronics and pharmaceuticals.

From Payments to Supply Chains

The proposed payment-system linkages form part of a broader Indian strategy to make intra-BRICS commerce easier.

Goyal called for closer cooperation in emerging technologies, digital trade, agriculture, professional services and startups. Easier recognition of professional qualifications and greater mobility of skilled workers could further deepen economic integration between BRICS economies.

The scale of the grouping makes these proposals significant. BRICS economies have steadily increased their share of international commerce, with merchandise exports from the grouping rising from roughly $900 billion in 2003 to nearly $6 trillion by 2024, according to figures highlighted by Goyal at the forum.

For India, therefore, internationalising UPI is becoming more than a fintech initiative. It is increasingly part of the country’s wider economic diplomacy.

The initiative would also give India’s digital public infrastructure a larger role in shaping the payment architecture of the Global South — moving UPI from an Indian payments success story towards a platform for deeper international financial connectivity.

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