According to recent news reports, India's Union Cabinet has approved a memorandum of understanding (MoU) related to collaborative research on distributed ledger technology (DLT). The Union Cabinet is the country's top decision-making body and is made up of cabinet ministers under the leadership of the prime minister. The MoU has an objective of increasing understanding of DLT and finding applications where the technology can be used to boost operational efficiency. It was brought forward by an initiative from the BRICS Interbank Cooperation Mechanism. Several entities from India, Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa will participate in the research. These include Exim Bank, Vnesheconombank, the Development Bank of Southern Africa, China Development Bank and BNDES. The first time that the creation of this MoU was proposed was back in July. It was talked about at the 10th International BRICS Summit, which took place in Johannesburg, South Africa. The main theme of the summit was promoting economic cooperation between the countries as the world enters a "fourth industrial revolution." Several banks agreed to work together to study DLT as a way to promote the growth and development of the digital economy in their countries. The MoU involves the participation of the top development banks in BRICS countries. It allows them to perform studies of how innovative and new technologies can be applied to the world of infrastructure finance and how they can be taken advantage of to optimize the products that the banks are currently providing. This isn't the first time that BRICS countries have expressed an interest in blockchain-related technologies. The Indian state of Telangana has previously entered in an agreement with several blockchain companies. Its goal is to develop and implement technology that would allow streamlining the delivery of government services. The ultimate objective of the measure is to increase transparency and efficiency in how the state's government provides its services to the public.