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To establish functional and widely used independent payment services, the blocs of emerging economies must overcome a range of challenges, including inter-alliance disputes, variation in foreign policy priorities and geopolitical pressures. 

Despite ambitious plans, several factors prevent emerging economies from achieving tangible progress in establishing a payment infrastructure that would serve as an alternative to Western financial institutions. 

Following a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a political and economic union of 10 emerging countries, including China, Russia, India and Iran, in September 2025, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov  to establish an independent payment system based on the proposed SCO Development Bank. 

"We discussed with our Chinese partners the possibility of this bank focusing on, first of all, new types of payments, digital payments, digital rubles, digital currencies, and digital financial assets, in order to be independent of Western infrastructure," Siluanov said. 

This is not the first time an alliance of emerging economies has attempted to create infrastructure to facilitate payments between its members. 

In October 2024, BRICS, a union of countries including China, India, Russia and Brazil, announced  to establish the BRICS Bridge and the BRICS Cross-Border Payments Initiative (BCBPI). 

The key declared goal was to expedite and simplify cross-border payments among the BRICS nations. 

The public launch was initially scheduled for September 2025, but there have been no recent reports on the progress of the initiative. 

Dmitry Dolgin, chief economist with ING Group, told 91����ԭ�� that BRICS and the SCO want to reduce reliance on Western-centric payment systems, which currently expose them to sanctions and operational risks. 

So far, national initiatives such as China's Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) and Russia's Financial Messaging System of the Bank of Russia (SPFS), along with stronger bilateral trade ties, have been more successful than pan-BRICS integration projects, such as a single currency or a unified payment platform, Dolgin noted. 

Bumps in the road 

Establishing a single payment platform within an alliance of diverse members is harder than it may seem at first glance. 

According to Dr Lauren Johnston, an associate professor in the China Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, Russia is especially motivated to pursue change. 

She noted that the country faces an unusually intensive level of financial sanctions from major monetary authorities, including the US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank (ECB), which also issue the world’s dominant reserve currencies.

“But, for example, for even Russia to be paid in Indian rupees for its oil, leaves Russia with a lot of rupees that are hard to get rid of, and instead Russia is investing these rupees in India. So, every change brings onward changes. It’s a complex matrix across many variables and multiple countries,” Johnston said.

Dolgin pointed out that the obstacles to establishing a single payment infrastructure are broad and complex, including variation in foreign policy priorities, exchange rate regimes and market depth.

“Moreover, creating a single platform could make it a more visible target for competitive or geopolitical pressures,” he added.

Although BRICS countries sit under one umbrella, they have very different economies, political priorities and strategic interests, noted Dr Kinga Redlowska, head of the Centre for Finance and Security (CFS) Europe. As a result, BRICS members often interpret the organisation's goals differently.

“At the end of the day, each country focuses on its own economic security. Within the BRICS, these priorities vary widely, so it is natural that enthusiasm for a shared payment infrastructure is uneven. This is why BRICS Bridge has moved slowly, even with Moscow pushing for it more than anyone else,” Redlowska added.

Dr. Mohamed Shadi, senior political economic researcher at the Al Habtoor Research Centre, told 91����ԭ�� that Russia and Iran, as countries subject to comprehensive Western sanctions, have the strongest interest in establishing an alternative payment infrastructure. For these states, developing sanction-resistant mechanisms is an existential economic priority.

In contrast, India and Brazil exhibit considerably more cautious approaches. Mostafa Ahmed, senior researcher at the Al Habtoor Research Centre, said: “These economies maintain extensive trade relationships with Western markets and express concerns about jeopardising these connections through overtly anti-Western financial initiatives”.

Bracing for impact 

Despite the slow progress, emerging countries’ efforts to develop independent payment services have raised concerns in Western countries. 

In 2024, then president-elect of the US Donald Trump  to impose 100% tariffs on BRICS countries if they moved forward with their own currency to rival the US dollar. 

The concerns that prompted this warning are not entirely groundless, observers believe. 

According to Dolgin, if successful, the BRICS and SCO initiatives could accelerate the trend towards decentralization and a more multipolar financial system, increasing the presence of core BRICS currencies in global payment flows.

If these alternative systems become more established, they could attract users who simply want faster, cheaper or more flexible options, potentially reshaping the financial landscape. 

Redlowska pointed out that others may turn to them “because Western financial services are harder to access, especially in places that have been de-risked by Western banks. This would not replace the existing global system, but it could make the financial landscape more fragmented and competitive.”

However, financial analysts believe that one of the key challenges is ensuring that any new system is competitive with existing solutions. 

"There is a chance to create new payment messaging frameworks, like CIPS, over SWIFT, which has sanctioned Russia, but you end up losing the efficiency of the global matrix, and it becomes more costly," Johnston said. 

Al Habtoor Research Centre believes that the outcome of the BRICS and SCO initiatives will depend on the trajectory of key geopolitical conflicts, such as the tariff war between the US and China. 

In an optimistic scenario, geopolitical tensions would stabilise, allowing the emergence of a multi-rail ecosystem with interoperable standards functioning as “global passkeys”, enabling transactions across different regional systems. This would preserve connectivity while allowing regional customisation and resilience. 

In a more fragmented scenario, geopolitical tensions would intensify, leading to bilateral agreements, the use of intermediary currencies, and divergence from global standards. Regional systems and payment methods would dominate specific use cases, fundamentally transform the financial landscape and potentially make international connectivity more challenging, particularly for institutions with multi-regional operations.

Looking ahead, the trajectory of BRICS and SCO payment initiatives will hinge less on the technical sophistication of the systems and more on the geopolitical environment that shapes their adoption.

Even if full interoperability or a unified platform remains unlikely, incremental integrations such as bilateral corridors, common messaging standards or digital currency pilots may still chip away at Western financial dominance at the margins. 

For policymakers and market participants, the strategic question is not whether these blocs can build a perfect alternative, but how far their gradual innovations could reshape the incentives, alignments and competitive dynamics of the global payments landscape over the next decade.