BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement

The BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA) is a framework for the provision of support through liquidity and precautionary instruments in response to actual or potential short-term balance of payments pressures. It was established in 2015 by the BRICS countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The legal basis is formed by the Treaty for the Establishment of a BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement, signed at Fortaleza, Brazil on 15 July 2014. It entered into force upon ratification by all BRICS states, announced at the 7th BRICS summit in July 2015.

The objective of this reserve is to provide protection against global liquidity pressures. This includes currency issues where members' national currencies are being adversely affected by global financial pressures. The CRA is generally seen as a competitor to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and along with the New Development Bank is viewed as an example of increasing South-South cooperation.

The CRA's "liquidity instrument" is the central bank liquidity swap. When a borrowing country ("Requesting Party") requests to draw funds, the central banks of the other countries ("Providing Parties") agree to sell and repurchase USD with the borrowing country's central bank. Both the spot and forward legs of the swap are executed at the spot rate, however the borrowing country must pay a predetermined interest rate in USD to the lending countries.

The capital of $100 billion is distributed as follows: The maximum access states can request from the Arrangement is half (China) to twice (South Africa) the amount of capital contributed.

The arrangement is scheduled to start lending in 2016.