Andrey Mikhaylishin, co-founder of the BRICS Pay project, confirmed that the payment system is open to facilitating linkages with Visa and Mastercard. He elaborated that the system’s foundational principles are to seamlessly upgrade its mechanism to benefit the alliance.
“BRICS Pay is predicated on open integration,” he said. “Initially, the system will facilitate linkages with Visa and Mastercard, thereby enabling foreign tourists and residents to seamlessly connect their existing cards to the application and conduct transactions without impediment.”
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However, he made it clear that BRICS Pay partnering with Visa and Mastercard has nothing to do with challenging the US dollar. “The aim of BRICS Pay is not displacement, but rather interconnection. The project endeavors to establish ‘payment bridges’ between disparate national systems,” he said.
He stressed that the main focus is only on connectivity rather than challenging the traditional world order. If BRICS Pay manages to interlink Visa and Mastercard, common people could begin using the payment system, further boosting the prospects of the alliance.
Visa & Mastercard in BRICS Pay
Mikhaylishin is only open to facilitate BRICS Pay with Visa and Mastercard. The two have not officially announced a partnership, and it remains a distant dream. The alliance might have a tough time negotiating with these two payment service providers. They are a standalone electronic finance payment processing firm offering various benefits to users and merchants.
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However, the US government might not permit Visa and Mastercard to provide services to BRICS. The White House will most likely see the partnership as a threat to the US. American companies will be met with criticism for offering payment services to the BRICS alliance. Though the leaders claim that they are not challenging the US dollar, the writing on the wall is clear, that they want to uproot it as the world’s reserve currency.