What would it take for a payment from the UAE to move across a shared BRICS rail instead of today’s patchwork of correspondent banks, regional systems and bilateral links? That is the question now being discussed. It is not, despite some of the louder headlines, a finished network.
Reserve Bank of India Governor Sanjay Malhotra said on August 11 that BRICS members are discussing possible links between their fast-payment systems and central bank digital currencies to reduce cross-border payment costs. He also said the options are still at the discussion stage. The UAE is in that conversation as a BRICS member, and it arrives with more practical CBDC experience than many readers may realize.
A future BRICS payments link could affect the cost and speed of cross-border settlement involving UAE banks and businesses, but nothing new is live yet.
UAE banks, payment companies, importers, exporters, treasury teams and residents who follow cross-border payment costs.
The UAE could apply experience from mBridge, Aber and existing regional payment rails to future interoperability work.
Technology, governance, FX, compliance, sanctions, access rules and settlement design remain unresolved in any multilateral payment link.
BRICS members are expected to keep discussing payment-system and CBDC interoperability under India’s 2026 presidency.
Treat current headlines as policy discussion, not a new payment option, until a UAE authority or participating bank publishes operational details.
Businesses moving money across BRICS markets would benefit most if interoperability reduces intermediaries, settlement time or fees.
No new participation rules have been announced; the current discussion concerns potential system and CBDC linkages between member countries.
Watch for a formal BRICS decision, named participating systems, UAE or CBUAE confirmation, technical standards and a real implementation timetable.
What Was Actually Said
Malhotra’s language was cautious. Cross-border payments are an area where BRICS members see room to reduce cost, and several options are being considered. Those options include central bank digital currencies and links between fast-payment systems. Reuters reported that India’s central bank had already recommended putting CBDC connectivity on the 2026 BRICS agenda earlier this year.
That is meaningful because it moves the idea beyond generic political language about cooperation. Central banks are discussing actual payment infrastructure. But the same statement contains the most important caveat: discussion stage. There is no announced common BRICS wallet, no confirmed UAE consumer service, no published fee table, and no implementation date.
This is where Robius would draw the line. A central bank conversation about interoperability is not the same thing as a live payment rail. Until the systems, participating institutions, currencies, settlement model and compliance rules are named, users cannot do anything with it.
Why the UAE Is More Than a Passenger in This Conversation
The UAE formally joined BRICS in 2024. The Ministry of Finance describes the membership as part of a broader push for international economic cooperation, investment and financial stability. That alone puts the country at the table. Its payments history makes the UAE angle more concrete.
The Central Bank of the UAE has already worked on cross-border CBDC infrastructure through mBridge, a multi-central-bank project designed to test direct international transfers using central bank digital currencies. CBUAE says the project was built to address high costs, slow transfers, limited transparency and other cross-border frictions.
The UAE and Saudi Arabia also completed Project Aber, which tested a jointly issued wholesale digital currency for domestic and cross-border settlement between participating banks. In 2024, the UAE recorded its first cross-border Digital Dirham payment on the mBridge minimum viable product platform. None of these projects is the new BRICS system, but they show that the UAE is not starting from a whiteboard.
That fits a broader domestic pattern. We have already covered how the UAE is making dirham-to-crypto access more regulated and ordinary and how Dubai is pushing toward a more cashless payments environment. Cross-border interoperability is the next layer of the same infrastructure story: not another app, but better rails underneath the apps.
Do Not Call mBridge the BRICS Bridge
There is an especially important piece of context because the names are easy to collapse into one story. mBridge is not a BRICS payment network. In 2024, then-BIS General Manager Agustín Carstens explicitly rejected the idea that mBridge was a “BRICS bridge” and said the project had been created to meet broader central-bank needs.
That statement predates the latest BRICS discussion, but the distinction still matters. The UAE’s experience with mBridge could inform future work. It does not prove that BRICS will adopt mBridge, that the Digital Dirham will become the settlement asset, or that the same technical architecture will be used.
This is a common problem in financial infrastructure coverage. One pilot becomes evidence for a second proposal, and the headline quietly turns “could” into “will.” We should resist that. The strongest fact today is that BRICS members are discussing linkages. Everything beyond that needs a named decision.
What Would Have to Be Solved Before UAE Users Notice Anything
First is governance. A cross-border system needs rules for which institutions can join, how disputes are handled, who is responsible when a transaction fails, and which authority supervises each part of the chain. A technical connection without a legal operating model is not a payment system anyone should trust with serious money.
Second is foreign exchange. Moving money faster does not automatically make currency conversion cheaper. The system still needs a way to price and settle different currencies with enough liquidity. For businesses, the useful number will not be transaction speed alone. It will be the total delivered cost after FX, compliance and settlement.
Third is compliance. Cross-border payments still carry anti-money-laundering, sanctions-screening, customer-identification and transaction-monitoring obligations. The CBUAE’s own guidance makes clear that cross-border payment modernization does not remove those controls. Any BRICS-linked rail that touches UAE institutions would still need to fit the UAE regulatory framework.
Fourth is the customer layer. Central-bank infrastructure can exist for years before an ordinary consumer sees a button. The discussion could initially matter only to banks and wholesale settlement. A retail connection would require participating banks or wallets, pricing, limits, identity rules and a user experience that has not been announced.
The Robius Layer
The UAE fintech market is increasingly built around infrastructure that sits behind the brand a customer sees. We made the same point in our look at embedded finance across UAE telecoms, payment terminals and free zones: the front door can change while the regulated rails underneath remain the part that determines accountability.
BRICS payments should be read the same way. Ignore the geopolitical branding for a moment. The practical questions are which rails connect, which central banks settle, which banks participate, what currency conversion costs, and what recourse exists when something goes wrong.
If those answers eventually produce cheaper and faster UAE cross-border payments, this will matter. Today, the useful conclusion is narrower: the UAE is in a serious infrastructure conversation, it has relevant technical experience, and there is still a long distance between that conversation and a new payment button on your phone.
Sources
- Reuters: RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra says BRICS members are discussing fast-payment and CBDC linkages and that talks remain at discussion stage. – https://www.reuters.com/world/india/brics-nations-discuss-linking-payment-systems-cbdcs-rbi-chief-says-2026-08-11/
- UAE Ministry of Finance: Official page confirming the UAE joined BRICS in 2024 and describing its participation. – https://mof.gov.ae/en/public-finance/international-relations/our-participation-in-brics/
- Central Bank of the UAE: Official mBridge overview and cross-border CBDC project background. – https://centralbank.ae/en/our-operations/fintech-digital-transformation/mbridge/
- Central Bank of the UAE: Official Project Aber overview for UAE-Saudi wholesale CBDC and cross-border settlement testing. – https://www.centralbank.ae/en/our-operations/fintech-digital-transformation/aber/
- BIS: Agustín Carstens on mBridge, including the distinction that it was not created as a BRICS bridge. – https://www.bis.org/speeches/sp241031.htm
This is not financial advice.
Robius.news — Dubai, UAE — 2026 | Built to be first. Built to be trusted.
