BRICS Pay glossary

Core ecosystem terms

BRICS Pay

An international payment ecosystem for BRICS countries and their partners. Connects national payment systems through the decentralised DCMS network, supporting settlements in national currencies and CBDCs.

BRICS Pay App

A mobile app for C2B payments: a tourist links a Visa and pays by QR at BRICS+ merchants. Available in Google Play (com.bricsPay).

BRICS Pay Wallet

A non-custodial crypto wallet: 600+ blockchains, swaps, staking (up to 20% APY), DEX aggregator, AML checks.

BRICS Pay Consortium

A DAO-style alliance of banks, fintechs, regulators and tech firms developing BRICS Pay. No single member has veto power.

BRICS Loyalty

A White Label loyalty platform with blockchain points and AI analytics. Developed with support from the Skolkovo Foundation.

Technology and infrastructure

DCMS

Decentralised Cross-border Messaging System. A decentralised financial-messaging system — the heart of BRICS Pay. SWIFT-equivalent without a central operator. Designed at SPbU. Throughput: 20,000 messages per second.

SWIFT

The global financial-messaging network (since 1973). Connects 11,000+ institutions in 200+ countries, processes ~USD 150 trillion a year. Dominant but governed by Western institutions.

CIPS

Cross-Border Interbank Payment System. The Chinese clearing and settlement network for the yuan. Around 1,300 participants worldwide.

SPFS

The Bank of Russia’s Financial Messaging System. ~160 foreign participants from 20 countries.

UPI

Unified Payments Interface. India’s national instant-payment system. One of the largest user-bases in the world.

Pix

Brazil’s national instant-payment system from the Banco Central do Brasil. Handles 49% of cashless transactions in the country (Q1 2025).

UnionPay

The Chinese card network founded in 2002. Over 6 billion cards worldwide; surpassed Visa in transaction volume back in 2015.

Mir / RuPay / ELO / PayShap

National payment systems of BRICS members: Russia (Mir, ~50M cards), India (RuPay, ~500M), Brazil (ELO, ~120M), South Africa (PayShap — instant interbank payments).

Digital currencies and tokens

CBDC

Central Bank Digital Currency. Unlike crypto, CBDCs are issued by a state and pegged to the national currency 1:1. Examples: digital rouble, digital yuan (e-CNY), digital rupee (e-INR).

SDR

Special Drawing Rights. The IMF reserve asset, a basket of five major currencies (USD, EUR, CNY, JPY, GBP). BRICS Bridge is testing a stablecoin pegged to the SDR basket.

BRICS Bridge

A sister project to BRICS Pay — an interbank platform for settlements via stablecoins (SDR basket and gold-backed). Halves the typical international fee from ~6%.

mBridge

A multilateral CBDC project of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) jointly with central banks of China, Hong Kong, Thailand and the UAE. BIS withdrew; the idea partially migrated into BRICS Pay/Bridge.

BFT

BRICS Food Token. A settlement token from Digital Bank BRICS used for food-related trade between member states.

NSRT / NSRT S

Settlement units in the Digital Bank BRICS ecosystem. NSRT S is a stablecoin pegged to SDR (1 NSRT S = 1 SDR). Used as a unit of account and a bridge between CBDCs.

Governance and compliance

BRICS Payments Task Force

A BRICS working group, set up by the Moscow Declaration on 17 November 2020. Coordinates BRICS Pay and related initiatives.

DAO

Decentralised Autonomous Organisation. Decisions are taken by member consensus per rules embedded in smart contracts. BRICS Pay is governed via a DAO model.

KYC / AML

Know Your Customer / Anti-Money Laundering. Mandatory identity-verification and anti-money-laundering procedures. In BRICS Pay these are run by Payment Service Providers (PSPs).

PSP

Payment Service Provider. A licensed intermediary between the user, the bank and BRICS Pay. Onboards merchants, runs KYC/AML, processes transactions.

FATF / OFAC

Financial Action Task Force / Office of Foreign Assets Control. International AML standards and the US Treasury sanctions list. BRICS Pay complies with both.

Wallets and payments

Self-custody wallet

A wallet where private keys are stored by the user, not by a centralised company. Full control over assets, full responsibility for backup.

Multi-chain

Support for many blockchains in a single wallet. BRICS Pay Wallet supports 600+ blockchains and tokens.

QR payment

Pay by scanning a QR code: the user scans the merchant’s QR with a smartphone, confirms the amount and currency, conversion and settlement happen automatically.

FX conversion

Foreign Exchange. Currency conversion. BRICS Pay reduces FX markup by 8–15% by settling directly between national systems without a USD intermediary.

Correspondent account

An account one bank holds at another for cross-border settlement. In a classic SWIFT flow, the chain of correspondent accounts is what makes international transfers slow and expensive.

Acquiring

The bank service of accepting payments at merchants and online. In BRICS Pay, acquirers onboard shops and services and set fees.

Multilateral netting

A method of multi-party offsetting: instead of gross settlement of every transaction, net positions are computed (100 transactions → 10 net positions). Sharply reduces liquidity needs.

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