BRICS Launches New Payment System in 185 Countries...Watch Out Dollar!

The Shift No One in the West Is Talking About — But the World Is Already Acting On

Well one of the biggest stories of 2025 quietly unfolded this past week and of course Western media had almost zero coverage of something that’s going to change the future of global financial markets. The BRICS organization successfully launched a new payment system that will allow 185 countries around the world the ability to conduct trade in Chinese currency and avoid using the US dollar altogether. Now I’ve been covering the rise of BRICS for several years now and it’s incredible to see the momentum this organization is having, but more importantly the interest from countries around the globe.

Everywhere from Africa to Latin America, the Middle East to Southeast Asia, the vast majority of countries around the world are pro-BRICS and want to escape a world dominated by the US dollar and the threat of US government sanctions and bullying. And this is not just me saying this, top Western news outlets like Bloomberg have published forecasts showcasing how BRICS+ will dominate the World’s GDP in the future. By 2050 the G7 will control only 18% of the world’s GDP, while BRICS will control just under 50%. These stats are remarkable and it’s why Bloomberg is sounding the alarm bells and publishing stories warning that BRICS is Getting Increasingly Hard to Ignore. I mean you know things are getting desperate for the G7 when one of its key members France, is now considering inviting China’s Xi Jinping to its annual meeting in France next year.

I highly doubt Xi will accept the invitation because why would he? China is at the center of BRICS growth and most importantly the Chinese currency has been exploding in popularity, with more countries taking on RMB loans today than at any point in history. And this is a fascinating development, because for years we’ve been told the renminbi could never go global since it’s not a fully convertible currency like the US dollar. For years financial experts have told us that the US dollar will always be king because of its status as the world reserve currency but when you look at the data, it’s remarkable to see how fast China’s currency is closing the gap!

Over the past five years, Chinese banks have quadrupled the amount of renminbi loans, deposits, and bond investments they hold overseas — now exceeding 3.4 trillion RMB, equivalent to about $480 billion dollars. This surge shows just how quickly China is expanding the renminbi’s presence in global finance. Last month the Bank for International Settlements released a new report estimating that overseas bank lending in renminbi to developing countries rose by $373 billion in the past four years. And this is why China’s role in BRICS is so important, as developing countries are now turning to not only China, but China’s currency for their future.

In the past two months we’ve seen multiple African countries including Kenya, Angola, and Ethiopia switch their loans from US dollars to Chinese renminbi. Indonesia and Slovenia recently announced plans to issue renminbi bonds, and last month Kazakhstan’s Development Bank sold a 2 billion renminbi offshore bond at a yield of just 3.3 percent. Again, none of these stories are making the front page of Western news because the majority of them are located in the Global South and outside the United States sphere of influence. But once you remove yourself from the Western media bubble, you’ll realize the majority of the world holds a much different viewpoint on China. Most countries in the Global South, and specifically in Africa, are eager to engage with China. Earlier this summer, at the height of Donald Trump’s global tariff war, China made an unprecedented move no one saw coming and signed a zero tariff trade agreement with 53 nations in Africa. The deal was monumental because never before have we witnessed a rising superpower like China secure the coordinated effort of an entire continent in a comprehensive plan to reshape global governance.

But here is where things get interesting, because it’s not just developing countries in Africa signing these deals with China. Remember earlier last month when Donald Trump flew to Malaysia, Japan and Korea for meetings with various leaders? Trump and the US government wanted to project American power and influence in the region, and of course the White House was quick to report Trump’s visit was a major success. But here is the story you probably have not heard. Less than 24 hours after Trump left Southeast Asia, the region collectively upgraded its free trade pact with China. This is important to understand because it’s actually ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which is China’s number one trading partner. Last year the economic bloc of 11 Southeast Asian countries conducted over $771 billion dollars of trade with China and Singapore’s Prime Minister Lawrence Wong had this to say about the region’s new trade deal with China:

“The upgrade will further reduce trade barriers, strengthen supply chain connectivity, and unlock opportunities in future growth areas”

Translation? Donald Trump isn’t winning the trade war. Instead countries around the world want to move towards a more reliable and stable partner, which so far in 2025 has proven to be China. Two days after Trump left Asia, Indonesia raised over $842 million dollars through the first-ever sale of Chinese Yuan bonds. These yuan-denominated bonds are called “Dim Sum bonds” and refer to bonds written in China’s currency but sold outside mainland China to offshore investors. But here’s what makes this story truly remarkable. Indonesia isn’t borrowing in US dollars. Instead, they chose to borrow in Chinese renminbi, and global investors absolutely flooded in. The Indonesian government offered 6 billion yuan worth of bonds but investors placed orders for 18 billion yuan — three times the amount. This just shows you how bullish international investors are on Indonesia’s economy but also how comfortable they are holding Chinese currency as an investment. And that’s the main message I want you to understand about this global shift in finance. A decade ago, nobody wanted renminbi bonds. Today, countries are funding their infrastructure projects using Chinese money and most importantly investors are lining up and actively buying Chinese renminbi bonds. When we zoom out and look at the global picture of what this really means it’s quite simple. China is becoming the financial anchor of Asia and every time a major country issues government debt in renminbi and NOT US dollars, China’s currency gets one step closer to becoming a true global alternative to the US dollar.

To show you what I mean just look at this chart from Swift which shows the renminbi’s share of global trade finance has quadrupled over the past three years to 7.6 per cent in September making it the second most-used currency in trade finance after the US dollar. When you look at this chart, the trend is unmistakable — China’s renminbi is exploding in global use. Back in 2016, cross-border RMB payments were tiny. But over the past five years, quarterly transactions on China’s CIPS network have surged to nearly 13 trillion yuan every single quarter. CIPS stands for China’s Cross-Border Interbank Payment System and processes more than 52 trillion yuan, that’s nearly $12.7 trillion dollars worth of transactions every year, accounting for 58% of all China’s cross-border flows. Even more impressive, the network now connects 4,800 banks across 185 countries.

Just last month China and South Africa, both key members of the BRICS alliance, launched the first ever BRICS loan in Chinese Yuan marking the two countries first-ever financing project conducted entirely in the Chinese currency. The funds will be directed toward development projects across Africa, focusing on infrastructure, energy, manufacturing, water management and education. And honestly this is why more countries in the Global South are interested in working closer with the Chinese. No country on earth has developed as fast and proficiently in the past 40 years as China, and many developing countries would like to follow in China’s footsteps and modernize their countries in the same way as China.

But it’s not just developing countries signing these deals. Once again, fresh after Trump’s visit to Korea, the Korean President met with China’s Xi Jinping and signed a new currency swap agreement worth 400 billion Chinese yuan, worth over $49 billion dollars. The deal between the Bank of Korea and the People’s Bank of China will be in place for 5 years and once again allow China and Korea to conduct trade in their respective currencies and avoid the US dollar usage altogether. Right now, one in every 13 international trade deals are settled in Chinese Renminbi, but with the new BRICS payment system we are only going to see this trend continue to rise and less transactions around the world made in US dollars.

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