Birth of a new Currency?

As you may already know the leaders of the five Brics countries have announced and signed an agreement yesterday (15.July 2014),  to create a new $100bn (£58.3bn) development bank and emergency reserve fund for their countries, and one would also assume this will also become available to some of their “partner” countries in due course.

For many years that has been some speculation that an alternative of competitive reserve currency to “compete with” the United States Dollar would emerge. Certainly the Brics group made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa may have a strong reason to encourage and promote that change. This is of course not withstanding the political challenges and issues that some of the BRICS members already face with the current “owner” of the dominant reserve currency, the $ (USD) and its secondary partner the € (euro).

As France and Germany found out when the European single currency project was being developed, many challenges exist when naming a new currency. The French expectation that the use of the franc would be universally accepted eventually failed.

It would be a surprise if today if somewhere in the BRICS Central Banks someone is not already running a focus group trying to come up with a name. Rublemin may well not be the winner perhaps?

The name of the Brics Bank and its subsequent currency name is likely to create some protracted debate, especially as it potential could, and no doubt as its promoters hope, become the 3rd reserve currency. Watch for denials, rumours and delivery, in that order.