BRICS Pay Adopted at New Delhi Summit as Payment Interoperability Layer, Not a Currency

Leaders adopted BRICS Pay at the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi on September 12, 2026 — a payment messaging network built for interoperability between Russia's SPFS, China's CIPS, India's UPI and Brazil's Pix rails, coordinated technically by India's Reserve Bank. The New Delhi Declaration explicitly rules out a shared BRICS currency, framing the initiative as making cross-border payments 'faster, cheaper, safer and more efficient' rather than full de-dollarization, and states there is 'no one-size-fits-all approach.' President Trump responded by threatening 100% tariffs on BRICS members. The initiative builds on the BRICS Bridge interoperability framework and a January 2026 RBI proposal to link BRICS central bank digital currencies (digital rupee, digital yuan, Brazil's DREX, UAE's dirham CBDC). Actual transaction volumes and full member participation remain unverified pending pilot rollout.