Central bank digital currencies as a tool for BRICS cooperation

Abstract. In the context of the expansion of the practice of sanctions restrictions and increasing geopolitical instability, there is an active search for new forms of international economic interaction, alternative to those that developed in the era of unipolar globalization at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries. Cooperation among the BRICS countries is one of the key platforms for the emerging polycent_ ric world order and the basis for a new, more democratic, model of globalization. The diverse interactions of the BRICS countries also include the search for a new system of financial and economic settlements. Digitalization has made the transi_ tion to electronic means of international settlements inevitable, both bilaterally and multilaterally. This ar ticle attempts to reveal the prospects for the development of the digital settlements sector in relations between the BRICS countries based on the formation of institutions of regulated national digital currencies—Central Bank Digital Currencies.