Russia rolling out blockchain payments in BRICS to move away from dollar
Russia is making another push to its fellow BRICS nations to move away from the U.S. dollar.
BRICS is rapidly growing, expanding from the original nations that help form its name of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa to encompass 10 countries, adding Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates to its roster. Numerous others are hoping to make their way through the approval process soon.
However, despite its growth, it hasn’t really accomplished much, and at this year’s summit in Kazan on the Volga River, Russian President Vladimir Putin is hoping to convince members to create a new global financial payment system that will threaten the U.S.’s current global finance dominance while protecting members from sanctions.
This is something that they say will enable “economic operations without being dependent on those that decided to weaponise the dollar and the euro.”
Known as BRICS-Bridge, the idea is to build it up within a year and give countries the ability to carry out cross-border payments with digital platforms that their respective central banks run. With the potential for quicker and more affordable transactions, emerging economies could be tempted away from carrying out business in U.S. dollars, and Western officials are already worried about its ability to hep countries get around sanctions.
Put simply, this initiative would use digital money that is backed by fiat currencies, which would mean that central banks are at the center of cross-border transactions. As a result, no single country would be able to cut off another one, and the need for correspondent banks that use the dollar clearing system would be eliminated.
Article