Brics countries launched a new bank on Tuesday, called the New Development Bank (NDB).
The countries, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, launched the bank in Shanghai and said it will lend money to developing countries to help finance infrastructure projects.
"Our objective is not to challenge the existing system as it is but to improve and complement the system in our own way," NDB President Kundapur Vaman Kamath said.
China is the biggest contributor to the bank, which will start out with a capital of $50bn (£32bn), an amount that will double in the next few years.
