Brazil sees problems with Swift, but disagrees with Russia’s proposal for payments via BRICS

The Brazilian government disagrees with the proposal made by Russia for an integrated payment system between the BRICS countries (a group that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa).

Earlier this month, Russian finance minister Anton Siluanov defended the proposal, telling a group meeting that the global economic situation had worsened significantly due to sanctions imposed amid the war in Ukraine.

According to him, this leads to the need to accelerate the work on the integration of payment and card systems and on the creation of its own financial communication system in the group, with expansion of the use of national currencies.

Erivaldo Gomes, secretary of International Affairs at the Ministry of Economy of Brazil, said this Thursday (14) that the payment system used today, Swift, needs to be updated – but that the solution is also global, and not restricted to some countries.

For this reason, he said, Brazil supports the construction of a new payment system – but one that works globally, and not restricted to a few countries.

“It makes sense for us to have a discussion on how to establish a new platform. Brazil understands that this should be at a multilateral, global level. Not a specific solution for a few countries. Even to avoid fragmentation,” he said when answering a question about the theme.

“People observe that [no Swift] a payment sometimes takes two or three days to reach the subject in the other country. It is an expensive, bureaucratic, time-consuming process that is not compatible with the demands of today’s economy”, he added.

According to him, the topic was raised by the Russians at a recent BRICS meeting, but it is not on the group’s agenda. “Our view is that a global solution makes sense,” he reiterated.