By Yaroslav Lissovolik
While the activism in BRICS initiatives and discussions has subsided since the start of this year, there is arguably still significant momentum in the expansion of the operations of the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB). Throughout the past several months a number of emerging market economies have expressed interest in joining its ranks, with NDB also seeking to boost its operations in the national currencies of BRICS economies. There may be more that NDB could do to bolster financial cooperation among its emerging market members, most notably via the creation of partnerships and platforms bringing together the regional development institutions and the sovereign wealth funds of BRICS+ countries.
In terms of membership trends, the NDB website currently lists the BRICS-5 economies (Brazil, South Africa, India, Russia, China) as Founding Members and Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Bangladesh and Algeria as New Members. Prospective members, i.e. those economies that “have been admitted by NDB’s Board of Governors and will officially become a member country once they deposit their instrument of accession”, include Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Ethiopia and Colombia. In the case of Uzbekistan, the accession process is approaching its final stages as earlier this month Uzbekistan’s legislature approved the country’s accession to the BRICS New Development Bank.
Among the recent NDB member candidates to emerge is Belarus – at the end of April 2026 its Finance Ministry has initiated technical consultations on the country’s accession to the BRICS New Development Bank. This decision from Belarus comes after the country became a BRICS partner economy in 2024. Another possible candidate is Serbia, whose representatives held discussions at the end of 2025 on the possibility of joining NDB in 2026. In 2025 Indonesia after becoming a full-fledged member of the BRICS core has undertaken steps to secure accession to NDB, including the discussion of possible investment projects with NDB management.
The further expansion in NDB membership addresses some of the key gaps in the evolution of BRICS+ as a bloc. Firstly, the geography of the candidates to join NDB expands to include more economies from Latin America (Colombia and Uruguay), with the Western Hemisphere being significantly under-represented in the current composition of BRICS core membership. Furthermore, new candidates such as Belarus and Serbia potentially could expand the geography of the Bank’s operations in Europe.
Another important dimension to NDB membership evolution is the rising number of landlocked economies that are poised to become full members. The list of candidates and prospective members that are landlocked includes Belarus, Serbia, Uzbekistan, Ethiopia – until now no such economies have featured among NDB members. The landlocked economies would significantly benefit from joining NDB through connectivity projects that may serve to lower the spatial and logistical barriers in accessing global markets.
Finally, the expansion in membership and the circle of candidates aligns core BRICS members with their regional partners in the sphere of development project cooperation – this is the case with Belarus and Uzbekistan as Russia’s regional partners in the CIS space; Colombia and Uruguay as Brazil’s regional partners in South America; Bangladesh as a regional partner of India in South Asia. This paradigm of admitting the regional partners of BRICS core members raises the scope for connectivity projects and for greater regional integration impulses to be supported by NDB.
In terms of NDB financial operations, the Bank continues to forge ahead with efforts to boost operations in the national currencies of BRICS members. On April 8, 2026, the New Development Bank (NDB) successfully priced a dual-tranche Panda Bond amounting to CNY 7 billion in the China interbank Panda Bond market, comprised of CNY 6 billion 3-year tranche at a fixed rate of 1.74% and CNY 1 billion 5-year tranche priced at 1.84%. Going forward, greater scale in financial operations in national currencies could be attained via forming cooperative platforms by NDB with regional development banks in which BRICS+ economies are leading members. There may also be scope to explore greater coordination between NDB and the BRICS+ economies’ sovereign wealth funds (SWFs), most notably with respect to coordinated investments into environmental projects.
Lastly, the New Development Bank is due to hold its 11th Annual Meeting in Moscow on May. The agenda includes a series of seminars, presentations and business sessions, with the theme of the Annual Meeting being: “Development Financing in an Era of Technological Revolution”.
Yaroslav Lissovolik is the Founder of BRICS+ Analytics.
