Can BRICS build a credible alternative to SWIFT? Discuss the challenges.

SWIFT is only a Belgium-based financial messaging network, yet its use as a sanctions chokepoint has pushed the Global South to seek options. The BRICS New Delhi Declaration (September 2026) backed greater use of national currencies and interoperable local-currency payment systems while ruling out a common currency [1] — signalling ambition, but a credible substitute remains distant.

The building blocks already exist

• Alternative rails: China's CIPS (2015) clears yuan onshore; Russia's SPFS (2014) carries messages; mBridge links central-bank digital currencies of the PBoC's Digital Currency Institute, HKMA, Bank of Thailand, UAE and Saudi central banks on a blockchain ledger.
• Institutional push: the Declaration endorses local-currency financing through the New Development Bank and a BRICS Payment Task Force studying interoperability of payment and messaging systems [1].
• India's calibrated route: the RBI's Special Rupee Vostro Account (SRVA) mechanism allows INR trade settlement, with surplus balances investable in government securities [2]; the live UPI–PayNow link with Singapore shows retail interoperability works [3].

Why credibility remains elusive

• The chokepoint is the currency, not the message: the dollar and euro dominate cross-border payments, and usage of other currencies stays limited because of strong inertia [4]. The renminbi is only about 2% of cross-border transactions [5].
• Trade finance and invoicing remain overwhelmingly dollar-based [4] — a new pipe cannot supply dollar credit lines.
• Convertibility and trust deficit: capital controls limit yuan usability; joining a PBoC-run system substitutes dependence on Beijing for dependence on Washington — the risk is moved, not removed.
• Rupee's own frictions: adverse trade balances leave partners with idle rupee holdings, and repeated regulatory revisions have kept rupee settlement a small share of India's trade.
• Political heterogeneity: the Declaration itself concedes no single approach fits all members, and the CBDC-linkage proposal stayed out of the text [1].

BRICS is therefore building resilience, not replacement — reducing the pain of exclusion rather than displacing the dollar. The realistic way forward is incremental: deepen rupee internationalisation, extend UPI linkages and Project Nexus, and keep interoperability technical rather than confrontational, aligned with the G20 cross-border payments agenda.