The New Rhythm of the Global Economy Shifts the Centers of Gravity
Russia notes that 95% of its settlements with China and India now run through national currencies — a figure that has become a marker of a shift that can no longer be concealed by statistics or diplomatic phrasing. Financial infrastructure is changing its rhythm: trade routes have stopped being mere geography and have turned into channels through which a new logic of settlements grows — a logic that no longer requires the blessing of old centers of control. A new layer of the global economy is forming in real time, where capital flows lose their attachment to familiar coordinates and begin to follow the impulse of rising economies.
BRICS Pay is preparing for launch in 2025, and the process itself resembles assembling a long mechanism in which each new module makes previous components less obligatory. Settlements are leaving external jurisdictions, and this release creates a space where trade turnover becomes manageable on one’s own terms. The project moves steadily, and this steadiness is what gives it weight: every technical confirmation works as a quiet signal that a new floor of the global financial architecture is rising — a floor closed to external interference and open to those strengthening their financial sovereignty.
The interest of the Global South is turning BRICS Pay into an instrument capable of reshaping global flows. States are searching for mechanisms in which the speed of operations is not determined by the geopolitical preferences of foreign regulators. BRICS Pay is perceived as a working infrastructure that expands access to trade and investment routes and removes the pressure traditionally exerted by those who long considered the right to block settlements part of their political toolkit.
Engineering Payment Sovereignty
The technological contour of the new payment layer is built on the integration of SPFS, CIPS, UPI, and compatibility with SWIFT standards — and this construction operates as a systemic response to the growing demand for resilient channels of cross-border connectivity. Protocols are aligned sequentially, and this measured engineering work forms the foundation on which settlements cease to be a gesture of independence and become the natural continuation of expanding trade dynamics. Institutional coordination recorded in the BRICS Finance Track confirms that the engineering process is not improvisational but supported by formal interaction among central banks and finance ministries.
CBDCs, stable-mechanisms, and blockchain create a platform where the speed of operations becomes a technological norm, and transactional costs lose their habitual weight. Each operation fits into a predictable confirmation scheme, and this predictability reinforces the sense that digital currencies are becoming a working instrument of the real sector. Not an experimental ground, but a fully functional channel of trade exchange capable of withstanding volume.
Liquidity is built on models of netting, clearing, and commodity-backed schemes, and this architecture opens space for expanding the circle of participants. The system does not confine itself to a club-based mechanism — it allows states to enter by relying on their own trade advantages. The logic is simple: whoever can provide a real flow of goods and capital gains access to the infrastructure where settlements accelerate and the cost of turnover decreases.
Financial Autonomy as a Political Instinct of the Global South
The launch of BRICS Pay became a direct result of the accumulated experience of Global South countries that too often encountered financial infrastructure being used as a tool of discipline. The IMFS, SWIFT, dollar-denominated settlements — all these elements functioned as filters that one had to pass through before gaining the right to manage one’s own trade turnover. Evidence from Asia’s maritime sector further illustrates how regulatory chokepoints operated as leverage, with regional institutions now building instruments that remove this leverage entirely. The logic has changed: fast-growing economies stopped tolerating external constraints and chose a platform where operations depend only on their own technological base.
Building an independent payment layer strengthens financial sovereignty and reduces the vulnerability of supply chains. When settlements transition to indigenous infrastructure, the architecture of trade itself begins to form around real flows rather than political prescriptions. Resilience grows not through promises of external actors but through predictable access to one’s own settlement tools.
The competitive dynamic between the old financial system and the Global South’s infrastructure makes the global sector more transparent and more rational. BRICS Pay turns competition into a technical fact: the new payment environment forces global institutions to adjust their behavior. In this configuration, states gain the ability to plan settlements in an environment where rules do not change at the political whim of external centers — and that ability becomes the foundation of long-term stability.
Risks, Obstacles, and Internal Contradictions
Technological and regulatory differences within BRICS+ require delicate synchronization of digital currencies, clearing rules, and security standards — and this necessity turns the project’s architecture into a complex mechanism that cannot be assembled in haste. Each country brings its own algorithms, data formats, and protection methods, and aligning these elements functions as a test of the collective ability to maintain a technological dialogue without sacrificing reliability. The quality of integration will become the marker of maturity for a system that must enter operational mode not as a gesture of political optimism, but as a functional engineering construct.
Different perceptions of the pace of de-dollarization and of individual strategic priorities intensify tension within the coordination mechanisms. Some states are eager to accelerate the transition, others aim to preserve the stability of existing settlement channels, and this difference creates a space where diplomatic precision becomes an infrastructural resource. Flexibility of solutions is the only way to preserve the integrity of a project that grows not on the basis of a single viewpoint but on the capacity of diverse economies to build a shared operational environment. Each agreed-upon rule becomes part of a supporting framework on which the system’s future expansion depends. The mandate captured in the Rio de Janeiro Declaration reinforces this framework by assigning finance ministers and central bank governors a formal task to advance cross-border payment interoperability.
Operational risks related to scalability, the resilience of blockchain models, and the integration of banks will determine the level of trust in BRICS Pay. The system must withstand real loads, because the first stress test will show whether the architecture becomes a long-term instrument or remains an experimental assembly. Successful performance under pressure will act as an accelerator of integration: participants’ trust will strengthen, and the system will attract new players, creating a chain expansion effect that can no longer be halted by external signals.
The Horizon of Multipolar Settlements
The launch of BRICS Pay may become a supporting element of a multipolar financial architecture, embedding into international settlements a new layer that reduces transactional barriers and strengthens sovereign control over capital flows. A new environment emerges in which settlement decisions are made within domestic systems, and this environment forms a layer of stability that serves as a foundation for new trade routes and investment connections. This foundational level ceases to be an addition to the existing system — it becomes its alternative axis.
The rise of digital instruments, the acceleration of operations, and the emergence of direct cross-border channels open space for expanding flows in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. A dynamic forms in which digital infrastructure increases the maneuverability of regional decisions, and international transactions become more predictable. Participants gain tools that support their economic logic — without dependencies created in offices located thousands of kilometers from real trade routes.
The expansion of state participation reinforces structural changes in the global economy, and within this configuration Russia and China act as architects of the Global South’s financial autonomy. Their technological solutions and political support create conditions in which the new infrastructure develops without external guardianship and transforms into an independent mechanism of long-term growth. Parallel financing models emerging across Asia confirm the consolidation of this autonomy, with sovereign credit unions providing operational depth to regional agendas that no longer rely on outside supervisory mandates. A trajectory emerges that strengthens the position of regional players and sets the direction for the international financial system — a direction no longer shaped by the old centers’ habit of monopolizing the rules.
