JUN KAJEE: Could Brics Pay be ANC’s US sanctions lifeline?

The US-SA Bilateral Relations Review Act of 2025 — threatening asset freezes, travel bans and financial blacklists against ANC officials over alleged ties to Russia and China — has thrust Pretoria into a quagmire of its own making.

As Washington considers weaponising the dollar-dominated Swift system to enforce compliance, SA leaders face an existential crisis: submit to Western coercion or fully embrace the pursuit of Brics Pay, the bloc’s alternative to Swift, anchored by China’s digital yuan and Russia’s System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS).

After its 2022 Swift exclusion Russia’s SPFS network became vital for processing energy payments with China, Iran and Belarus. The EU’s 16th sanctions package, introduced in February, severed 13 additional Russian banks from Swift, bringing the total to 129 sanctioned institutions controlling nearly all domestic banking assets. Concurrent US measures targeted Gazprombank, the last major state-owned bank with Swift access.

The Kazan Declaration in October 2024 formalised the Brics’ commitment to an “independent cross-border settlement and depository infrastructure”, marking a direct challenge to Western sanctions enforcement. This aligns with the bloc’s expansion strategy to erode dollar hegemony through decentralised financial architecture. Brics Pay’s design bypasses conventional Western oversight via three pillars:

• Decentralised blockchain framework. Peer-to-peer transactions bypass US-controlled correspondent banks, while encrypted ledgers obscure beneficiary details from third-party audits.
• Local currency dominance. Settlements in rand, yuan or roubles eliminate dollar intermediation, depriving the US of jurisdictional leverage. The integration of the SA Reserve Bank’s National Payments System with China’s e-CNY would enable direct rand-yuan swaps for bilateral trade.
• Sanctions-resistant integration. Russia’s SPFS and China’s Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS) provide operational independence from US scrutiny.

This multilayered infrastructure, reinforced by Brics’ expanded membership and the Kazan Declaration’s push for financial sovereignty, positions Brics Pay as both a technical countermeasure to dollar weaponisation and an indispensable tool for derisking sanctions.

The architecture of Brics Pay provides government officials with a viable mechanism to evade Western sanctions, raising a plethora of implementation concerns for Washington to consider. Asset protection is facilitated through central bank digital currency (CBDC) vaults that convert rand holdings into e-CNY or Brics Pay-linked digital currencies stored in foreign banks, exploiting jurisdictional gaps in dollar-clearing oversight — a tactic mirroring Russia’s use of SPFS to collateralise assets with gold reserves, insulating wealth from rouble volatility and Swift freezes.

By leveraging blockchain’s opacity, officials anonymise asset flows, eroding transparency norms foundational to anti-corruption efforts. Brics Pay wallets’ floated interoperability with platforms like China’s Alipay would enable transactions in 40-plus countries, circumventing Western-monitored banking channels, while the reported abuse of diplomatic pouches to transport untraceable CBDC hardware wallets replicates the covert liquidity methods historically employed by sanctioned regimes such as Iran and North Korea.

Politically, Brics Pay could be exploited by Brics-aligned nonstate actors to channel funds in ways that may evade traditional financial oversight. While the platform is designed to enhance trade and financial sovereignty, the use of smart contracts and decentralised ledgers introduces risks that financial flows — including political party financing — might bypass conventional auditing processes. These mechanisms, though framed as “de-dollarisation” tools — functionally replicate sanctions evasion tactics, prioritising regime survival over transparency.

If SA officials were to use Brics Pay to circumvent sanctions, the Trump administration may enforce secondary sanctions on financial institutions facilitating non-dollar transactions. Drawing from past measures against Russia and Iran, Washington would have reasonable cause to blacklist entities facilitating Brics-linked settlements, freezing assets and restricting access to correspondent banking networks.

While Brics Pay has been framed as a tool for fostering a “multipolar financial order” through local currency transactions and blockchain-based autonomy, its design and demonstrated use raise questions about its primary purpose. Proponents argue it enables “financial sovereignty” by reducing reliance on Western systems, yet its accelerated development aligns suspiciously with efforts to insulate Brics members from sanctions enforcement.

• Kajee is a lecturer and adjunct faculty member at Southern Utah University, focusing on internationalisation and intercultural communication.