BRICS Push for Alternatives to the SWIFT Payment System

Gist At the recent BRICS Summit, member nations resolved to increase bilateral trade using national currencies, reflecting a growing push to bypass the US dollar. This development highlights the acceleration of alternative cross-border payment platforms such as China's CIPS, Russia's SPFS, and the multi-nation mBridge project. For a civil services aspirant, this underscores the geopolitical shift towards de-dollarisation, the strategic deployment of Central Bank Digital Currencies CBDCs , and how nations are insulating themselves from Western financial sanctions. Background The Belgium-based SWIFT Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication system is the universally accepted messaging network that global banks use to clear and settle cross-border payments. Because transactions often rely on US correspondent banks and Western financial infrastructure, the United States has the ability to "weaponise" the dollar by sanctioning countries and cutting them off from SWIFT. As heavily sanctioned nations like Russia and Iran were expelled from the network, countries in the Global South began developing parallel domestic clearing systems and exploring Central Bank Digital Currencies CBDCs to settle international trade independently of Western oversight. Key Pointers Geopolitics of payments:…