Where the math is defensible.
Long-form research on live enterprise decisions. Publication is selective. Every number traces to a named source. No takes without evidence.
BRICS Payments 2026: Yuan Settlement, mBridge, and the De-dollarization Scorecard
Local-currency settlement is rising at the margins, but the dollar still anchors global finance. We score the actual progress on yuan internationalization, the mBridge CBDC pilot, and bilateral payment rails through 2028.
BRICS-aligned economies have spent four years building parallel payment infrastructure: CIPS for yuan clearing, mBridge for CBDC settlement, and a thicket of bilateral local-currency arrangements from Brasilia to New Delhi to Abu Dhabi. The headline numbers look dramatic, with CIPS volumes up sharply and the dollar share of allocated rese...
BRICS+ Payments After mBridge: Plumbing Without a Pipeline
The Kazan declaration promised a parallel financial architecture, yet 18 months on the BRICS+ rail is a patchwork of bilateral corridors, while the dollar still clears 47 percent of SWIFT traffic and anchors 58 percent of allocated reserves.
BRICS+ leaders left Kazan in October 2024 with a communique that name-checked BRICS Pay, a cross-border depository called BRICS Clear, and local-currency settlement, but stopped short of any unified currency. Days later the BIS Innovation Hub announced its withdrawal from Project mBridge, leaving China, the HKMA, Thailand, the UAE, and Sa...
India and China in 2026: Patrols Resume, Trade Reopens, Trust Stays Conditional
After a four year freeze that began with the Galwan clash, Delhi and Beijing have reopened the boundary, restored business visas, and resumed direct flights. The economic rewiring runs ahead of the political reset, with a record USD 85 billion bilateral deficit forcing Press Note 3 reform on the Indian side.
The India and China relationship in 2026 sits at a managed thaw rather than a strategic reset. The October 21, 2024 Ministry of External Affairs announcement that Indian and Chinese troops would resume coordinated patrolling at Demchok and Depsang, followed by the Modi and Xi meeting at the Kazan BRICS summit on October 23, 2024, ended th...
Prabowo year one: governance, Danantara, and the soft repricing of the Indonesia trade
October 2024 to October 2025 stress tested the Prabowo administration's appetite for fiscal discretion, executive consolidation of state assets, and a foreign policy reset toward BRICS without rupturing the orthodox anchors that underwrote the Widodo decade.
Prabowo Subianto's first twelve months produced a governance regime distinct from anything in post 1998 Indonesia. The cabinet swelled to 109 ministers and vice ministers, Sri Mulyani Indrawati was replaced at Keuangan in February 2025, Bahlil Lahadalia consolidated power across investment and energy, and the Danantara holding launched in...