The Five Nations of BRICS Propose Creating a Cryptocurrency

November 15, 2019, by Marko Vidrih on ALTCOIN MAGAZINE

Members of the BRICS group, which consists of the five major emerging nations — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — have proposed the creation of a cryptocurrency for settlements on payment transactions between countries.

General Director of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) Kirill Dmitriev brought the idea to the attention of the BRICS Business Council. The member countries of the group plan to create a single payment system, and then carry out settlements on transactions in cryptocurrency. According to Dmitriev, the BRICS Business Council supported this idea.

“An efficiently operating BRICS payment system is able to stimulate settlements in national currencies and ensure the stability of settlements and investments between our countries, which form more than 20% of the global influx of foreign direct investment,” said Dmitriev, who is also a member of the council.

BRICS countries are gradually reducing the share of settlements in dollars. According to Dmitriev, over the past five years, the share of the dollar in foreign trade calculations has fallen from 92% to 50%. Member of the State Duma’s expert council Nikita Kulikov noted that creating a cryptocurrency is not difficult, but it is important to understand how much BRICS member countries will be ready to use it.

“Cryptocurrency is a convenient mechanism for settlements in supranational structures such as BRICS,” said Kulikov.

As The Economist Times reported earlier, India, Russia and China are discussing the possibility of creating an alternative to the SWIFT international payment mechanism in order to facilitate trade with countries under US sanctions. Within the framework of cooperation, it is planned to connect the Russian Financial Message Transmission System (SPFS) to the Chinese international system of interbank payments CIPS.

The issue of creating an interstate cryptocurrency BRICS began to be discussed back in 2017. Last summer, the development banks of the BRICS countries began a joint study of the blockchain, and last fall, the Indian government approved the study of the blockchain in the framework of cooperation between the BRICS countries.

Author: Marko Vidrih