The Fifth Scientific Seminar of the "Approaches to an Alternative International Monetary System" Project with the participation of Paulo Nogueira Batista Jr., former Vice President of the BRICS New Development Bank and former IMF Executive Director, and Marcos V. Chiliatto, Executive Director of the World Bank.
On October 8, 2025, the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs hosted the fifth seminar of the joint research group of HSE University and the University of Campinas, titled "Approaches to an Alternative International Monetary System." The event featured Paulo Nogueira Batista Jr., former Vice President of the BRICS New Development Bank and former IMF Executive Director, and Marcos V. Chiliatto, Executive Director of the World Bank. Paulo Nogueira Batista Jr. and Marcos V. Chiliatto presented their research findings.
Marcos V. Chiliatto spoke about two major initiatives in the field of de-dollarization and increasing the share of settlements in national currencies in Latin America: the Reciprocal Payments and Credits Agreement (Convenio de Pagos y Créditos Recíprocos, CCR) and the Local Currency Payment System (Sistema de Monedas Locales, SML). The first initiative was launched in 1965 and involves the mutual offsetting of assets and liabilities between the central banks of Latin America without regularly conducting actual settlements in dollars. The system created by the Reciprocal Payments and Credits Agreement played an extremely important role in the financial life of Latin America in the 1980s, covering over 90% of all intra-regional imports; by the end of the 20th century, it had declined, and in 2019, its operation was suspended on Brazil's initiative. In 2008, the MERCOSUR countries launched a less extensive initiative — the Local Currency Payment System. It constitutes a set of bilateral agreements on payments in national currencies between the MERCOSUR countries.
Paulo Nogueira Batista Jr.'s report focused on de-dollarization and potential solutions for the BRICS countries in this area. According to his research, reducing dependence on the dollar is a vital task for the member states of the association for several reasons: the impact of the Federal Reserve's policies on the national economies of other countries through the channel of dollar issuance, the control of the Bretton Woods international organizations by the United States, and the use of the dollar as a tool for economic sanctions. Paulo Nogueira Batista Jr. emphasized that de-dollarization initiatives should not represent a de facto shift to barter: it is necessary to create settlement instruments whose use does not lead to a sharp increase in transaction costs compared to the dollar. As a solution, he proposed the creation of a single BRICS reserve asset based on a currency basket.
At the end of the seminar, the participants discussed the features, strengths, and weaknesses of the historical and potential de-dollarization measures presented in the reports.