As India hosted the BRICS summit in New Delhi in September 2026, a familiar question returned: does the grouping produce anything beyond summit statements? The New Development Bank (NDB) offers the clearest evidence in the affirmative. India first proposed the bank at an earlier BRICS summit in New Delhi in 2012, and its 2026 chairship of BRICS brought that idea full circle.
Judging a development bank is not simple; big announcements matter less than the money that actually reaches projects. The NDB’s record can thus be evaluated on three broad counts. The first is how much it has lent and how much of that money has actually been paid out. The second is whom the bank lends to. The third is how it raises the money it lends. On all three, the picture is more encouraging than the NDB’s low public profile suggests.
By the end of June 2026, the NDB had approved loans worth about $44 billion for 141 projects in clean energy, transport, water systems and digital infrastructure. Of that amount, roughly $25 billion had already been paid out to borrowers. The second figure is especially important. Many development banks approve large loans but pay out much less, and much more slowly. A bank that has paid out more than half of what it approved is doing real work, not just signing agreements.
The NDB’s public figures show what this money is building: 2,400 megawatts of clean energy capacity under way, 1,400 kilometers of tunnels and canals, 43 schools built or upgraded and a large increase in sewage treatment capacity.
The bank’s reach has also grown. Its founding members were Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. It has since added Algeria, Bangladesh, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Uzbekistan. Its members now stretch from South and Central Asia to Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America.
India’s place in the NDB is unusual. It helped create the bank, it owns an equal share of it, and it is one of its biggest borrowers. Each founding member holds about 18.7 percent of the bank’s capital. This was designed so that no single country could control it. Even so, India has used the bank’s loans more than most members.
Since 2016 the bank has approved 32 initiatives for India, worth close to $9.5 billion, in transport, social development, and clean energy. Lending has continued into 2026 also. Recent approvals include a $300 million clean energy project involving REC Limited and an affordable housing project backed by the Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO). Earlier, the bank provided $500 million towards the 82-km long rapid transit line between Delhi and Meerut. This is not aid. It is an ordinary lending relationship.
Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has described the NDB’s value less in terms of money and more in terms of shared knowledge. In August 2026, she said development banks should help countries plan cities and infrastructure better, not just pay for them. NDB President Dilma Rousseff, a former president of Brazil, replied by pointing to India’s Viksit Bharat development plans as a model for other members. It is a small but telling detail: the bank India proposed is now led by a Brazilian who uses Indian policy as an example for everyone else.
The third count, how the bank funds itself, is where India’s chairship of BRICS this year has left its clearest mark. In August 2026, the bank and the Indian government held a joint meeting on bringing more private money into development projects. Rousseff called this a key priority, as members look for ways to fund large infrastructure beyond what governments alone can pay for. Sitharaman’s point was simple: development banks can make projects safer and more predictable for private investors, which brings in more private money.
Two more steps followed. On September 10, two days before the BRICS summit opened, the bank raised 7 billion Chinese yuan through a bond sale in China. This gave it a new source of funds, separate from its usual channels. On the same day, it launched a BRICS-NDB knowledge portal linked to India’s chairship.
These steps will not make headlines outside financial circles. But they matter. A bank that can raise money in different markets and attract private investors does not have to wait for its member governments to put in more capital. That makes it a more reliable lender for developing countries. At the same time, however, relying more on Chinese bond markets may raise questions about whether the bank’s funding is spread evenly across its members.
The NDB can be an important source of finance for the Global South, helping countries build power plants, transport links and water systems. But development lending is slow work. It needs steady funding, careful planning, and trust between members. India’s chairship year has pushed the bank toward a broader funding base. Whether that shift lasts will become clearer in 2027, when India will host the bank’s annual meeting and this year’s results can be measured against what follows.