{"id":287096,"date":"2025-02-03T12:00:20","date_gmt":"2025-02-03T12:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=287096"},"modified":"2025-01-29T05:36:20","modified_gmt":"2025-01-29T05:36:20","slug":"new-brics-banking-system-would-render-sanctions-useless-ex-chancellor-warns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2025\/02\/new-brics-banking-system-would-render-sanctions-useless-ex-chancellor-warns\/","title":{"rendered":"New BRICS Banking System Would Render Sanctions Useless, ex-Chancellor Warns"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Lord Lamont of Lerwick warned that a rival payments system would be a \u2018major threat to the Western-led financial system\u2019 if it ever came to pass. <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

29 Jan 2025 <\/em>– A plan by BRICS countries to create a separate banking payments system could render international sanctions useless, a former chancellor of the Exchequer has warned.<\/p>\n

BRICS , an alliance of major developing countries, includes Russia, China, India and Brazil as founding members, and now also South Africa, Iran, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Ethiopia.<\/p>\n

Lord Lamont of Lerwick warned that a rival payments system would be a \u201cmajor threat to the Western-led financial system\u201d if it ever came to pass.<\/p>\n

His comments came after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced his plan to de-dollarise the world economy at the latest BRICS summit.<\/p>\n

Lord Lamont told the House of Lords: \u201cWhile the idea of a Brics payments system, which was announced by Mr Putin at the Kazan Brics conference, may seem rather fanciful and a long way off, nevertheless it needs to be taken seriously.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it ever happened, it would be a major threat to the Western-led financial system, but above all it would make it impossible for the West to impose sanctions on countries like Russia, China or Iran or other malign countries.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that Chinese state media reported that the new payments system would be based on technology from the Bank for International Settlements, which has been developing a cross-border payments platform called Project mBridge.<\/p>\n

Lord Lamont said: \u201cAmerica has expressed some concern to the Bank for International Settlements about this transfer of technology to possible malign actors. Shouldn\u2019t this be taken seriously?\u201d<\/p>\n

Financial Secretary to the Treasury Lord Livermore said: \u201cThe Government believes an integrated global financial system is the best way to achieve global prosperity and financial stability.<\/p>\n

\u201cFragmentation is damaging to the global economy, whereas deep liquid markets boost economic efficiency.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is why we will continue to work with our international partners to strengthen the rules-based international system and our interconnected financial and economic systems.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cOf course we should take these developments seriously.<\/p>\n

\u201cI won\u2019t comment on the specific proposals announced by the Brics countries. I wouldn\u2019t want to speculate as to what systems may or may not come into common usage.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I will say is the Government believes very much that the current international model of the financial system works effectively and that we will continue to work with our international partners to maintain an interconnected financial and economic system.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the question of sanctions effectiveness, of course we continue to believe that economic sanctions are an important and effective tool and will continue to utilise those sanctions where necessary.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn terms of the potential to undermine them, we will pursue any necessary steps with our allies to maintain the interconnected system and to reduce opportunities for the circumvention or evasion of international sanctions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former top diplomat Lord Hannay of Chiswick warned that President-elect Donald Trump\u2019s proposal to significantly raise tariffs on imported goods to the US could accelerate the Brics countries\u2019 plan.<\/p>\n

The independent crossbench peer said: \u201cIf the President-elect of the US goes ahead with some of the more extreme versions of his tariffs ideas, this is likely to add momentum and an impetus to the attempts by the Brics to break away from the financial system that currently exists.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Liberal Democrat peer Baroness Kramer warned that the current international payments system is \u201chapless\u201d and that, if the Brics countries manage to create one that works better, users will flock to this alternative.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cBecause of my complex family, I need to transfer funds across international borders several times a year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe system assumes I\u2019m a terrorist, the banks have rip-off charges and exchange rates and obstructive technology, and even the new online apps for which I had high hopes have very severe limitations.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo Western governments, including ours, understand that, if they fail to remedy this absolutely hapless international payments system and the Brics devise any international payments system that\u2019s even halfway efficient and reasonably priced, users will simply flock to the Brics system out of sheer frustration?\u201d<\/p>\n

Lord Livermore said he did not not think it would be \u201cappropriate\u201d to comment on the Trump administration\u2019s future policies, but said the UK will \u201cwork closely with the US on a range of security issues, including sanctions\u201d.<\/p>\n

On the problems with the current international payments system, he told Lady Kramer: \u201cI share some of her frustrations in this regard; I\u2019m always happy to vouch for her that she\u2019s not a terrorist, I\u2019m very certain of that fact.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is obviously an extremely serious point that she\u2019s making and fragmentation along the lines that she describes would be very damaging to the global economy. We must ensure that doesn\u2019t proceed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Go to Original – infobrics.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

29 Jan 2025 – Lord Lamont of Lerwick, a former chancellor of the Exchequer, has warned that a plan by BRICS countries to create a rival banking payments system would be a \u2018major threat to the Western-led financial system\u2019 and render international sanctions useless.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":287097,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[180],"tags":[239,3311,3380,232,3309,354,562,923],"class_list":["post-287096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brics","tag-brics","tag-brics-central-bank","tag-brics-currency","tag-capitalism","tag-de-dollarization","tag-economics","tag-finance","tag-sanctions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287096"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":287098,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287096\/revisions\/287098"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}