Ta teden naj bi voditelji držav BRICS na vrhu v Kazanu predstavili načrt za nov plačilni sistem med državami članicami, imenovan “BRICS-Bridge”. Čeprav so osnovni razlogi za nov plačilni promet predvsem geopolitične in strateško-varnostne narave, pa ne gre zanemariti ekonomskih koristi.

Nov BRICS plačilni promet prinaša predvsem dvoje prednosti za njegove uporabnike. Prvič, za razliko od sedanjega centraliziranega sistema, ki (prek SWIFT informacijskega sistema) temelji na medsebojnih odnosih med 11,000 bankami, ki morajo imeti korespondenčno banko v Ameriki, pa bi naj bil nov BRICS plačilni sistem decentraliziran. Temeljil naj bi na konceptu, ki ga je razvila in testirala “centralna banka centralnih bank” BIS iz Basla (imenovan mBridge), v katerem med seboj komunicirajo in poravnavajo obveznosti centralne banke, poslovne banke posamezne države pa nato poravnavajo svoje mednarodne obveznosti prek nacionalne centralne banke. Slednje delujejo kot klirinški sistem med državami (nekaj podobnega je že leta 1944 predlagal britanski ekonomiost John M. Keynes na srečanju zaveznikov v Bretton Woodsu). Prednost tega sistema je, da je bistveno hitrejši od sedanjega sistema, saj se namesto v dnevih (kot danes) mednarodne transakcije lahko poravnajo v minutah ali celo sekundah znotraj klirinškega sistema centralne banke.

Druga prednost BRICS plačilnega sistema je, da transakcije ne gredo več skozi ameriške korespondenčne banke in jih torej ni mogoče spremljati, kontrolirati ali celo ogroziti. S tem se države zavarujejo pred morebitnimi ameriškimi (in zahodnimi) sankcijami, saj jih v primeru političnih ukrepov ni mogoče izključiti iz mednarodnega plačilnega sistema, kot se je to zgodilo Iranu in Rusiji in kot bi se lahko zgodilo Kitajski.

Razvoj tovrstnega BRICS plačilnega prometa je torej slaba novica ne samo za prevlado ameriškega dolarja v globalnih transakcijah, pač pa tudi za politično prevlado ZDA. ZDA s tem izgubijo ne samo izjemni finančni privilegij, pač pa tudi politični vzvod za kontrolo držav. Še slabša novica pa je, da so softversko kodo za koncept mBridge za baselsko BIS razvijala kitajska podjetja…

Kakorkoli bodoči BRICS plačilni promet vodi k večji avtonomiji in neodvisnosti držav od ZDA, pa bo ta sistem potreboval precej časa, da bo polno zaživel. Največja ovira v tem klirinškem sistemu bodo neizravnane trgovinske bilance med državami. Glede na to, da bo največji upnik v tem sistemu Kitajska zaradi svojega trgovinskega presežka s praktično vsemi državami (tako kot Nemčija v evropskem TARGET2), bo posledično tudi kitajski yuan moral postopno prevzeti podobno vlogo rezervne valute, kot jo je dolar po bretonwoodskem sporazumu iz leta 1944. To pa bi seveda dalo Kitajski podobne prednosti, kot so jih pridobile ZDA po drugi svetovni vojni z dolarjem, in kar – po začetnem navdušenju – zna postati politično problematično za mnoge članice BRICS.

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Mr Putin hopes to make life outside the American system more bearable by laying some financial plumbing of his own. BRICS officials have held a flurry of meetings ahead of the summit in Kazan. They have discussed creating a credit-ratings agency to rival the main Western ones, which Russia sees as “susceptible to politicisation”. They also examined creating a reinsurance firm to sidestep Western ones that are blocked from reinsuring some tankers transporting Russian oil, and a payments system to replace Visa and MasterCard. Mr Putin has pushed for creating a common BRICS currency for pricing trade, based on a basket of gold and other non-dollar currencies, but Indian officials objected to this in recent weeks.

By far the most serious initiative is a plan to use digital money backed by fiat currencies. This would place central banks, not correspondent banks with access to the dollar clearing system in America, in the middle of cross-border transactions. In decentralising the financial system, the proposal would mean that no one country could disconnect another. Since commercial banks would transact through their own central banks, they would not need to maintain bilateral relationships with foreign banks, side-stepping the network effects of the current correspondent-banking system.

The “BRICS Bridge” plan was outlined in a report by the Russian finance ministry and central bank in October. Running to 48 pages it critiques Western finance and states that “a new multinational platform for the purposes of cross border settlement needs to be examined in further detail due to its novelty, associated risks, and, potentially, game-changing economics”.  With its focus on digital currencies run by central banks it appears to be at least partially inspired by an experimental payments platform called mBridge, which was developed by the BIS alongside the central banks of China, Hong Kong, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates. Chinese state media say that the new BRICS plan “is likely to draw on the lessons learned” from the mBridge project by the BIS.

That BIS experiment was innocent in design and initiated in 2019, before Russia’s full-scale invasion. It has been stunningly successful, according to several people involved in the project. It could cut transaction times from days to seconds and transaction costs to almost nothing. In June the BIS said mBridge had reached “minimum viable product stage” and Saudi Arabia’s central bank joined as a fifth partner in the scheme. Some 31 other members are observers. By creating a system that could potentially be far more efficient than the current one—and which would weaken the dominance of the dollar—the BIS has unwittingly stepped into a geopolitical minefield.

“If someone is transacting outside of the dollar system for political reasons, you want that to be more expensive for them than the dollar system,” says Jay Shambaugh, a senior treasury department official. The efficiency gains of new kinds of digital money may erode the use of the dollar in cross-border trade, according to the Fed. Reciprocally they could boost China’s currency.  Speaking to bankers and officials about mBridge in September, a Hong Kong official said it “provides another opportunity to allow the easier use of the renminbi in cross-border payment, and Hong Kong as an offshore hub stands to benefit”.

Is it possible that mBridge’s concepts and code may be replicated by the BRICS, China or Russia? The BIS doubtless views mBridge as a joint project and believes that it has the ultimate say over who can join. Yet some Western officials say that participants in the mBridge trial may be able to pass on the intellectual capital it involves to others, including participants in the BRICS Bridge. According to multiple sources China has taken a lead on the software and code behind the mBridge project. The People’s Bank of China, the central bank, leads the project’s technology subcommittee and, according to comments made by a BIS official in 2023, its digital ledger “was built by” the PBOC. Perhaps this technology and know-how could be used to build a parallel system beyond the reach of the BIS or its Western members. The BIS has declined to comment on any similarities between its experiment and Mr Putin’s plan.

The BRICS’s foray into the payments race reveals the new geopolitical challenges facing multilateral organisations. At a meeting of the G20 group of large economies in 2020, the BIS was given the job of both improving the existing system and, at China’s urging, of experimenting with digital currencies. Earlier this year Agustín Carstens, its boss, called for “entirely new architectures” and a “fundamental rethink of the financial system”.

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Any rival BRICS payments system will still face huge challenges. Guaranteeing liquidity will be difficult or require large implicit government subsidies. If the underlying flows of capital and trade between two countries are imbalanced, which they usually are, they will have to accumulate assets or liabilities in each others’ currencies, which may be unappealing. Distrust of China runs deep in India, a key BRICS member. And to scale a digital-currency system, countries must agree on complex rules to govern settlement and financial crime. Such unanimity is unlikely to win the day in Kazan.

Yet, for all that, the BRICS scheme may have momentum.  There is a broad consensus that the current cross-border-payments system is too slow and expensive. While rich countries tend to focus on making it quicker, many others want to overturn the current system entirely. At least 134 central banks are experimenting with digital money, mostly for domestic purposes, reckons the Atlantic Council, a think-tank. The number working on such currencies for cross-border transactions has doubled to 13 since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This week’s BRICS summit is no Bretton Woods. All that Russia and its pals have to do is move a relatively small number of sanctions-related transactions beyond America’s reach.

Vir. The Economist