According to Reuters, the Reserve Bank of India has recommended that a proposal to connect BRICS central bank digital currencies be placed on the agenda of the 2026 BRICS summit, which India will host later this year. Two sources said the recommendation has been submitted to the government, marking the first time such a linkage proposal would be formally tabled within the bloc.

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If approved, the initiative would connect the digital currencies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa through interoperable infrastructure and governance standards. The goal would be to improve efficiency in trade finance and tourism payments while reducing transaction costs.

The proposal could draw resistance from the United States, which has warned BRICS members against efforts to bypass the dollar.

"The BRICS alliance is anti-American," U.S. President Donald Trump previously said, while threatening tariffs on countries aligned with the bloc.

The RBI, India's finance ministry and Brazil's central bank did not respond to requests for comment. China's central bank said it had no information to share, while South Africa and Russia declined to comment.

The RBI's proposal builds on a 2025 BRICS declaration calling for greater interoperability between members' payment systems. The central bank has said publicly that it wants to link India's digital rupee with other nations' CBDCs to speed up cross-border settlements and increase the rupee's global usage, while stressing that the policy is not aimed at de-dollarisation.

None of the BRICS members has fully launched a retail CBDC, but all five core members are running pilot programs. India's e-rupee has reached about seven million retail users since its 2022 launch, while China has pledged to expand international use of the digital yuan.