The question looming amid the maddening eurozone financial crisis now is, will the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) nations consider lending a helping hand to a world that has yet to officially and formally recognise its economic hold in the global market today?

After the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB) both forecast an impending global financial doom far worse than the one in 2008, economists and analysts now turned their focus to BRIC, to help prevent the world's financial crash.

American economist Joseph Stiglitz, who was chief economist at the WB from 1996 until 1999, said now might be the time for the BRIC nations to join forces to create a global fund similar to the lines that created the WB in 1944.

"The fact is that money is with the emerging markets," Mr Stiglitz had earlier said in the SME Times. "I am a very strong supporter of the emerging markets and creating a new international fund."

Even Jim O'Neill, the Goldman Sachs' analyst who coined the BRIC acronym in 2001, said the four nations show every sign of having an even greater influence on the world economy.

"All four of the BRIC countries have exceeded the expectations I had of them back in 2001," Mr O'Neill wrote in his new book The Growth Map.

"The aggregate GDP has close to quadrupled since 2001, from around $3 trillion to between $11 and $12 trillion. The world economy has doubled in size since 2001, and a third of that growth has come from the BRICs."

"By 2015, the BRIC countries will be collectively bigger than the U.S."

Now needed for its money, the IMF had signified seeking by as much as $500 billion financial assistance from the BRIC nations in order to boost its lending capacity by $1 trillion, an anonymous IMF official reportedly told Bloomberg News.

The IMF on Wednesday said its cash vault only has $385 billion available, and confirmed it is working to add more into its funds, noting some euro-region countries have pledged to contribute $192 billion. Still, this could not be enough to salvage the potential deterioration that dangles ahead for the eurozone.

It is still uncertain whether the BRIC nations will cooperate, and by how much financial cooperation they will extend. China, the world's second-largest economy and dominant member of the BRICs in terms of fiscal wealth, might consider helping IMF if it is given a slot and more influence at the IMF.

Still, things remain tentative as the U.S. had put its feet down, saying it no longer plans to extend more loans to the IMF.

"Europe has the capacity to solve its problems," Bloomberg News quoted the U.S. Treasury as saying. "The IMF cannot substitute for a robust euro area firewall. We have told our international partners that we have no intention to seek additional resources for the IMF."