World
BRICS Promised to Ditch the Dollar But its Members Won't Play Along
— 3 mins read
China leads the push and India refuses to join it
The BRICS group of nations has spent years promising to end the world's reliance on the US dollar. The latest figures show the dollar still makes up around 57% of global currency reserves, while China's yuan holds roughly 2%.
The bloc has grown from five members, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, to around 11 after Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the UAE joined in 2024, and Indonesia joined in 2025. Its summits regularly call for a financial system less dominated by Western institutions.
What China has built
China has led the effort. Its main tool is CIPS, a payment system for settling trade in yuan. It has around 176 direct participants and more than 1,500 indirect ones, and handled 123 trillion yuan (c.£13 trillion) of transactions in 2023. CIPS is authorised by the People's Bank of China, the Chinese state's own central bank, and runs alongside existing systems rather than replacing them.
Trade in national currencies has grown in specific cases. Russia switched heavily to yuan after 2022. India has settled some oil purchases with the UAE in rupees. China and Brazil have struck deals in their own currencies.
India has said openly that it does not want to replace the dollar and opposes any shared BRICS currency.
The bloc's development bank, the New Development Bank, has approved about $42.9 billion (c.£32 billion) across 139 projects and aims to make 30% of its lending in local currencies. It is funded by contributions from member governments. That is modest money next to the World Bank, and it operates within the existing global financial system, not outside it.
India will not play along
The bigger problem sits inside the bloc itself. India has said openly that it does not want to replace the dollar and opposes any shared BRICS currency. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has called the dollar a source of stability. An Indian parliamentary panel pressed the government on the question again this year and got the same answer.
Nor is India alone in pulling against the group. The bloc now contains open rivals, including Saudi Arabia and Iran, energy exporters alongside energy importers, and members with very different relationships with the West.
Why the dollar keeps winning
US Federal Reserve figures show the dollar is used in about 54% of trade invoicing and 88% of all foreign exchange transactions. Its reserve share has slipped only modestly since 1999 and has been stable in recent years.
Beijing will not let money move freely in and out of China. A currency you cannot freely take out of the country is not a currency savers and traders want to hold, and the 2% reserve figure shows they do not.
The tariff threat from Washington
US President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened 100% tariffs on BRICS countries that pursue a rival currency. The threat is credited with cooling ambitions, with Brazil dropping talk of a common currency. The original analysis presented US tariff policy as an unqualified boost to the dollar; it did not note that broad tariffs also risk disrupting the trade flows that keep the world buying dollars.
India takes over the BRICS presidency in 2026 and will host the next summit. It is expected to steer the bloc towards practical cooperation rather than confrontation with the dollar. For now, the dollar's position rests on deep markets, enforceable contracts, and decades of habit.
