[Vladimir Putin] also said the increased use of BRICS national currencies for transactions will "minimize geopolitical risks."
Some of the BRICS countries have wildly volatile currencies either because of governments "printing money" to devalue their currency for economic stimulus for exports or to pay down debts. Alternatively straight up currency manipulation by the sovereign states issuing them. I would think this makes settling transactions in these local currencies a big risk for commerce. You don't know if the value of the currency you accept tomorrow will be worth what it is today. These are reasons GBP, Euro, and USD are so valuable as currencies, they generally have pretty consistent values.
I mean Russia is back to bartering for goods the Ruble is struggling so hard.
I imagine the the reason China is ok with it is cause they view Russia as collateral that they can claim for their cheap labor force and supplies when they try to push their own economy out of so much manufacturing.
Similar to what they are doing in Africa but with a closer contract to push on since it's closer and easier to control.
How will this be any worse on BRICS Clear than it currently is on Swift ?
Lets say you're Egypt selling cotton to Russia. BRICS Clear is pushing local currencies. So Russia wants to pay for the Egyptian cotton in Russian Rubles. Lets say the amount of Rubles would buy 10,000 barrels of crude oil at the time of settlement. Russia is currently in economic dire straights and the currency value is dropping. When Egypt wants to spend its Rubles, if it can find a country willing to take them, it could only buy 5,000 barrels of crude oil.
How eager will Egypt be to settle another transaction in BRICS Clear when the value can evaporate. This is way international trade wants to settle in stable currencies.
Edit: Lol, there's mention of it being based on blockchain. Of course, why not use a technology that already doesn't work well. I wonder if they're going to go with a Western firm to implement it.
The only thing they've broken is their own economic growth. Alarms are going off in China particularly. Hard to make a recovery plan when government also controls the industry. Their last round of stimulus did absolutely nothing.
Not to mention, the other half is that they wouldn’t even be discussing this if Russia wasn’t being slowly economically strangled due to sanctions. And Russia wouldn’t be getting sanctioned if the hadn’t fucking invaded Ukraine proper in 2022.