The 2nd BRICS Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting was held in Mumbai on 9 and 10 September 2026 under India’s BRICS 2026 Chairship. Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Sanjay Malhotra and Department of Economic Affairs Secretary Anuradha Thakur co-chaired the meeting. During the meeting, Malhotra and New Development Bank (NDB) President Dilma Rousseff inaugurated the BRICS-NDB Knowledge Portal (BNKP), a central digital platform to share policy experience across BRICS working groups.
What Is the 2nd BRICS FMCBG Meeting in Mumbai?
FMCBG stands for Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors. It is the main finance track meeting of BRICS, where finance ministers and central bank heads of member countries set the economic agenda before the leaders summit.
The Mumbai meeting was the final finance track meeting before the 18th BRICS Summit. India held the BRICS 2026 Chairship from 1 January 2026 under the theme Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability. The finance track under this chairship followed a clear sequence.
| Meeting | Date in 2026 | Venue |
|---|---|---|
| BRICS Finance and Central Bank Deputies meeting | 26 February | Discussed BNKP proposal |
| 1st FMCBG meeting | 12 to 13 August | Jaipur, Rajasthan |
| 2nd FMCBG meeting | 9 to 10 September | Mumbai, Maharashtra |
| 18th BRICS Summit | 12 to 13 September | Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi |
The Mumbai meeting brought together finance ministers and central bank governors from all 11 BRICS member countries. A joint statement was issued on 11 September 2026 after the talks. The statement fed directly into the New Delhi Declaration adopted at the leaders summit.
Who Co-Chaired the Mumbai Finance Track Meeting?
The 2nd FMCBG meeting in Mumbai was co-chaired by India’s top finance officials.
Sanjay Malhotra is the 26th Governor of the Reserve Bank of India. He took charge on 11 December 2024 for a three year term after succeeding Shaktikanta Das. Malhotra is a 1990 batch Indian Administrative Service officer of the Rajasthan cadre. He studied computer science at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur and holds a masters degree in public policy from Princeton University in the United States. Before joining the RBI, he served as Revenue Secretary and as Secretary in the Department of Financial Services. The central office of the RBI is in Mumbai.
Anuradha Thakur is the Secretary of the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) in the Ministry of Finance. The DEA handles India’s economic policy, capital markets, multilateral lending and engagement with institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Thakur is a 1994 batch Indian Administrative Service officer of the Himachal Pradesh cadre. She took charge of the DEA on 1 July 2025 and also serves as a government nominee director on the RBI Central Board.
Dilma Rousseff joined the co-chairs for the launch of the knowledge portal. She is the President of the New Development Bank and a former President of Brazil. The Board of Governors of the NDB elected her on 24 March 2023. As NDB President, she reports to BRICS leaders on the bank’s lending and development work.
What Is the BRICS-NDB Knowledge Portal?
BNKP stands for BRICS-NDB Knowledge Portal. The New Development Bank launched the portal in Mumbai on 10 September 2026 during the 2nd FMCBG meeting. The NDB will develop and run the portal with successive BRICS chair countries.
The portal is a central digital platform that collects and shares knowledge from across BRICS finance working groups and NDB operations. Its aim is to promote innovation, strengthen South-South cooperation and support sustainable development. South-South cooperation means developing countries sharing skills, technology and funds with each other.
The portal will store technical work, good practices and lessons from country programmes and NDB funded projects. The focus areas include open source artificial intelligence, clean energy, infrastructure, transport, water systems and digital and financial platforms. It will act as a memory for the finance track, so that work started under one chairship continues under the next.
The portal has a clear policy history:
- The proposal was first placed at the BRICS Finance and Central Bank Deputies meeting on 26 February 2026.
- The 1st FMCBG meeting on 13 August 2026 gave broad support to the idea.
- The NDB formally launched the portal at the 2nd FMCBG meeting on 10 September 2026.
- BRICS leaders welcomed the launch in the New Delhi Declaration and asked the NDB to make it a practical tool for member countries.
The launch carries forward earlier summit promises. The 2023 Johannesburg II Declaration asked the NDB to play an active role in knowledge sharing. The 2024 Kazan Declaration called for stronger capacity building and knowledge exchange. The portal is accessible at bnkp.ndb.int.
What Did BRICS Finance Chiefs Say on Tariffs and Local Currency?
The Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors issued a joint statement on 11 September 2026 after the Mumbai talks. The statement covered trade, payments and reform of global finance.
On tariffs, the finance chiefs expressed serious concern over the unilateral raising of tariffs and non tariff measures. They said such actions distort trade and go against the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO). They supported an open, transparent, inclusive, non discriminatory and rules based trading system with the WTO at its centre.
On payments, the statement backed practical work on cross border payments in local currencies. The BRICS Payment Task Force (BPTF) is studying ways to link payment and messaging channels across countries. The aim is to make payments among BRICS countries fast, low cost, accessible, efficient, transparent and safe. The statement added that national priorities must be respected and there is no one size fits all model. Talks also covered trade settlement in BRICS local currencies and study of links between fast payment systems and Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). A CBDC is digital money issued directly by a central bank.
India used its chairship to set up a BRICS Task Force on Growth and Development. The task force gives BRICS and other emerging markets a platform to discuss growth models suited to their own needs. It works through two workstreams covering resilience, innovation and cooperation, and sustainability.
The statement also covered reform of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank to give emerging markets a stronger voice, tax and customs cooperation, central bank capacity building, information security, fintech and sustainable finance.
What Is BRICS and Why Does the Finance Track Matter?
BRICS stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The term began as BRIC, coined by economist Jim O’Neill in 2001 for fast growing emerging economies. The first BRIC summit was held in 2009 in Yekaterinburg in Russia. South Africa joined in 2010, and the name became BRICS.
BRICS is not a treaty body like the United Nations and it has no permanent headquarters. It works through an annual leaders summit, ministerial meetings and a rotating chair. India chaired BRICS in 2012, 2016 and 2021, and assumed the chair for the fourth time on 1 January 2026. The year 2026 also marks 20 years since BRIC foreign ministers first met in 2006.
As of 2026, BRICS has 11 full members:
| No. | Member Country | Joined |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brazil | Founding member |
| 2 | Russia | Founding member |
| 3 | India | Founding member |
| 4 | China | Founding member |
| 5 | South Africa | 2010 |
| 6 | Egypt | 2024 |
| 7 | Ethiopia | 2024 |
| 8 | Iran | 2024 |
| 9 | Saudi Arabia | 2024 |
| 10 | United Arab Emirates | 2024 |
| 11 | Indonesia | 2025 |
Ten more countries joined as partner countries in 2025, including Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Uganda, Uzbekistan and Vietnam. Together, BRICS members account for about half the world population and about 40 percent of global output in purchasing power terms and about 26 percent of global trade.
The finance track matters because it handles money issues before leaders decide. The New Development Bank, often called the BRICS bank, is the clearest product of this track. The idea for the bank was proposed by India at the 4th BRICS summit in New Delhi in 2012. The agreement was signed at the 6th BRICS summit in Fortaleza in Brazil on 15 July 2014, and the bank started work in 2015. The NDB is headquartered in Shanghai in China, with regional offices including Johannesburg, Sao Paulo, Moscow and Ahmedabad in India. Its first President was K. V. Kamath of India. Each founding member holds an equal share and no member has a veto. The initial authorised capital was $100 billion, with $50 billion initially subscribed.
There is no common BRICS currency. India has said it does not support a single shared currency. The current work is narrower and more practical. It focuses on settling more trade in national currencies and linking systems such as India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI), Brazil’s Pix, Russia’s SPFS and China’s CIPS to cut cost and settlement time.
Key Takeaways
- The 2nd BRICS FMCBG meeting was held on 9 to 10 September 2026 in Mumbai under India’s BRICS 2026 Chairship.
- Sanjay Malhotra, 26th RBI Governor, and Anuradha Thakur, DEA Secretary, co-chaired the Mumbai meeting.
- The BRICS-NDB Knowledge Portal was launched on 10 September 2026 by Malhotra and NDB President Dilma Rousseff.
- The New Development Bank, headquartered in Shanghai, was set up in 2014 at Fortaleza and became operational in 2015.
- India’s BRICS 2026 theme is Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability, leading to the 18th BRICS Summit on 12 to 13 September 2026 in New Delhi.
