The bloc of five major emerging economies known as BRICS is taking tangible steps to establish a development bank at the Group of 20 summit in St Petersburg, Russia.

Leaders from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa met in an unofficial format during the summit and discussed progress made toward establishing a development bank and a joint reserve fund for the bloc.

The bloc agreed on a joint foreign currency reserve pool of $100 billion, Vice-Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao said on the sidelines of the summit on Thursday.