Every cross-border payment is essentially a message between banks: “Bank A debited 100 EUR from a customer; Bank B, please credit the recipient.” BRICS Pay routes that message directly between BRICS+ countries, bypassing the long chains of Western intermediaries.
DCMS — what it is
DCMS stands for Decentralised Cross-border Messaging System. In essence, it is the equivalent of SWIFT — the global messaging network that has carried most international transfers since 1973.
The key difference: SWIFT is a centralised network with a Belgian headquarters historically under Western influence. DCMS is distributed: servers run in each participating country and act as equal peers. No one can “switch off” a country by political fiat — as Russia was disconnected from SWIFT in 2022.
DCMS was developed by researchers at Saint Petersburg State University together with experts from BRICS countries.
- Distributed nodes — servers in different countries, no central kill switch.
- Digital signature on every message — anti-forgery, like a stamp on a document.
- End-to-end encryption — even if someone intercepts a message, decoding without the key is impossible.
- Automatic routing — if a direct channel is unavailable, the system finds a detour through other nodes.
- Optional fees — no mandatory “system tax” like SWIFT’s. Each bank sets its own pricing.
- Open source after the pilot phase — the code can be audited by independent experts.
- SWIFT MT compatibility — banks can use familiar message formats without retraining.
Performance
Connection with national payment systems
Each BRICS country has its own payment infrastructure. BRICS Pay does not build anything from scratch — it plugs in on top. Like a bridge between cities: the cities themselves don’t change, a new road just appears between them.
Mir & SBP
Russia — national card and Bank-of-Russia faster-payments.
UPI
India — instant interbank payments. 500M+ users.
Pix
Brazil — instant system. 49% of cashless ops in Brazil today.
UnionPay
China — card network. 6B+ cards worldwide, more than Visa.
PayShap
South Africa — instant interbank payments.
RuPay & ELO
India (≈500M cards) and Brazil (≈120M) — national card networks.
Multilateral Netting in plain words
Imagine: company A owes B a million; B owes C a million; C owes A a million. In a regular system, three transfers totalling three million. In BRICS Pay the system sees the debts close in a circle — nobody actually owes anyone. Zero real transfers. That is multilateral netting.
Real life is more complex: different amounts, different currencies. But the principle is the same: net everything first, transfer only the difference. This sharply reduces banks’ liquidity needs.
📊 Real number
In BRICS Pay pilots, 100 transactions between participants collapse into 10 net positions. Ten times fewer money movements for the same trade volume.
CBDCs — central-bank digital currencies
CBDC stands for Central Bank Digital Currency. Unlike crypto, CBDC is issued by a state and pegged to the national currency 1:1. BRICS Pay is built to work with the digital rouble, e-CNY (digital yuan), digital rupee (e-INR), DREX (Brazil) and others.
To shuttle money smoothly between different CBDCs, the ecosystem has a sister project BRICS Bridge and stablecoins:
- NSRT S — a stablecoin pegged to the IMF SDR basket (5 major currencies).
- Gold-backed stablecoin — for long-term storage, backed by physical gold.
- BFT (BRICS Food Token) — a settlement token for food trade between member states.
Security
- Multi-factor authentication (MFA) — at least two “proofs”: password + SMS/email + biometrics.
- End-to-end encryption of messages and user data.
- Distributed storage — copies live on multiple servers in different countries; one falls, the rest keep going.
- KYC and AML at the PSP layer — KYC means identity verification (like a bank), AML algorithms catch laundering attempts.
- Digital signature on every operation — no after-the-fact forgery.
- Transparent immutable transaction log — every operation is recorded in the blockchain, can’t be edited later.
BRICS Pay complies with FATF (the international anti-money-laundering standard, established in Paris in 1989) and OFAC (the US sanctions list). In plain language: you can’t move “dirty” money or pay sanctioned entities through the system. Everything is checked automatically.
Governance: DAO in plain words
DAO — Decentralised Autonomous Organisation. Sounds heavy; it is simple: decisions are made by votes of all participants, not by one person or company.
Picture an association of equals: banks, fintechs, regulators, technology providers. Each has a vote. Changing anything requires consensus. So no single country can shut the system down or unilaterally raise fees.