India is pursuing a multi-track economic offensive across Africa's three BRICS member states — South Africa, Egypt, and Ethiopia — combining a digital rupee payments proposal, a bilateral trade agreement with Pretoria, and an expanding Russian-linked oil trade that has drawn Washington's attention, according to reporting from Business Insider Africa and The Times of India.
The centrepiece of India's digital finance push is the e-Rupee, the Reserve Bank of India's central bank digital currency, which New Delhi is proposing to deploy as a cross-border settlement rail with its African BRICS partners. The pitch targets one of the most persistent pain points in India-Africa trade: correspondent banking fees and dollar-denominated settlement delays that inflate transaction costs for smaller importers and exporters on both sides. By routing payments through a CBDC corridor, India argues bilateral flows can bypass the SWIFT-dollar system entirely.
The stakes are tangible. India is already one of Africa's largest trading partners, and South Africa, Egypt, and Ethiopia collectively represent anchor economies across three of the continent's most strategically important sub-regions. A functional digital rupee corridor would give Indian exporters — pharmaceuticals, IT services, textiles — a settlement advantage over competitors from China and Europe who remain dependent on dollar rails.
On the trade agreement front, India and South Africa are separately in discussions over a bilateral pact designed to lift commercial activity beyond current levels, according to The Times of India. The talks are part of a broader Indian diplomatic effort to lock in preferential access before African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) implementation reshapes the continent's tariff architecture. For South African exporters — particularly in mining, automotive components, and agriculture — a formal pact could open Indian market access that currently sits behind high tariff walls.
The oil dimension complicates the picture significantly. India is the world's third-largest crude importer, and its refineries have sharply increased purchases of discounted Russian oil since Moscow's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Business Insider Africa reports that Russia has simultaneously deepened oil-related commercial ties with African nations, creating a triangular flow of Russian crude — from Russian fields, processed through Indian refineries, and in some configurations re-exported or financing arrangements extended toward Africa. Washington has signalled that entities facilitating Russian oil trade above the G7-imposed price cap of $60 per barrel risk secondary sanctions, a threat that hangs directly over Indian refiners and trading houses active in Africa.
For African energy ministers and state oil companies, this creates a specific operational risk: procurement arrangements or joint ventures structured through Indian intermediaries could inadvertently fall within the reach of US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control. Nigeria, Angola, and South Africa all maintain existing energy sector relationships with Indian state firms including Indian Oil Corporation and BPCL.
The BRICS dimension knits all three threads together. Since the bloc's 2023 expansion admitted Egypt and Ethiopia alongside existing member South Africa, India has been quietly positioning itself as the member best placed to bridge the Global South's financial infrastructure ambitions with practical implementation. China has BRI lending; India is offering a digital payments layer. The e-Rupee proposal essentially asks African BRICS members to adopt Indian financial infrastructure standards — a standards competition that will matter for decades if CBDC corridors become the norm for South-South trade settlement.
For African operators and investors, the immediate calculus is this: the digital rupee corridor, if it advances from proposal to pilot, would most benefit mid-market traders in sectors where India and Africa already have high bilateral volume — generics pharmaceuticals (India supplies roughly 25% of Africa's drug imports by volume), agri-commodities, and IT outsourcing. The sanctions risk around Russian oil is real but manageable if procurement is structured carefully and price-cap compliance is documented. The India-South Africa trade pact, if concluded, would be the more durable prize — binding market access beats any bilateral CBDC arrangement that a future government could walk back.
Why it matters: India's simultaneous push on digital payments, trade agreements, and energy ties with Africa's BRICS three is not philanthropy — it is a calculated bid to embed Indian financial and commercial standards into the fastest-growing bloc of African economies before China, the EU, or the US can reframe the terms. African governments that engage selectively, extracting trade concessions and payments infrastructure without absorbing sanctions exposure from Russia-linked oil flows, will come out ahead.