Goyal urges BRICS to link payment systems and lower trade barriers
Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal called on BRICS nations to improve market access, reduce customs friction and connect digital payment systems modelled on UPI. The move could ease cross-border transactions and trade for Indian businesses if member states adopt interoperable payment rails.
What happened
Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal urged BRICS members to lower trade barriers, improve customs access and link payment systems using UPI-style digital
Key facts
- UPI is accepted in 11 countries
- UPI records more than 250 billion transactions annually
- BRICS accounts for nearly one-quarter of global trade
- BRICS represents around 40% of global GDP
- More than 45% of India's 250,000 recognised startups have at least one woman partner or director
- Two-thirds of small loans issued over the past decade went to women entrepreneurs
- India aims to become a developed nation by 2047
Why this matters
Companies with payment, marketplace or logistics exposure should assess BRICS partnerships that pair interoperable payments with customs simplification, targeting lower-cost entry into high-growth member-country corridors.
What to watch
- Signed bilateral UPI or instant-payment interoperability agreements, pilot launch dates and merchant acceptance rules.
- BRICS summit communiques that move from broad cooperation language to technical standards, governance bodies, funding or settlement pilots.
- Central-bank approvals for local-currency settlement, retail FX conversion and nonresident wallet access.
- Customs reforms covering electronic certificates of origin, pre-clearance, de minimis thresholds and interoperable trade documentation.
- Merchant discount rates, FX spreads, settlement times and refund capability for participating payment corridors.
- Sanctions, AML and data-localization requirements that could limit participation by banks, PSPs or marketplaces.
- Map sales, sourcing and customer-acquisition exposure across BRICS markets, separating high-volume trade corridors from markets with merely strategic relevance.
- Prepare checkout architecture for modular local-payment methods, QR payments, local-currency pricing and alternative settlement partners rather than betting on one BRICS-wide rail.
- Identify SKU categories where lower customs friction could enable cross-border assortment expansion, especially Indian beauty, apparel, wellness, specialty food and SME-exported goods.
- Review FX, refund, chargeback, KYC and tax workflows for cross-border digital payments; payment acceptance may scale faster than operational readiness.
- Seek partnerships with payment service providers and logistics intermediaries that are already connected to UPI, local instant-payment schemes and digital customs platforms.