Issues on funding as well as where to house the future development bank to rival the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have stalled the member nations of the BRICS group (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa).

To jump start the development bank, each member nation needs to contribute an equal amount of US$10 billion each. But given the realistic scenario of the current global fiscal crisis, only member-nation China can easily produce the amount.

And although China had willingly expressed to pay for the share of the Brazilian and South African counterparts, India, which vouched the idea of the development bank during the 4th BRICS summit in New Delhi in March 2012, is uncomfortable with the idea.

Allowing China to rein in much of the capital seed needed to kick off the bank would possibly mean enjoying a veto power over the proposed bank's decisions and operations in the future.

"There is positive movement, but there is no decision on the creation of the bank," Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said after finance ministers met before a formal summit of the BRICS heads of state in the port of Durban.

The BRICS' development bank will focus on funding infrastructure and development in emerging markets. Its creation is very much necessary, according to Chinese Finance Minister Lou Jiwei.

"What we have now about the development bank is just a general picture," he said. He said the group expect to have concrete steps and final results by next year. "That's what the nations are working towards," he added.

"It will not be easy to reach agreement on the bank's capital contributions and governance structure," economist Andrew Kenningham told Bloomberg. "If and when it gets up and running, it may simply duplicate or substitute for funds led by the Chinese Development Bank."

But the highly anticipated development bank is unlikely to be up and running, at least for the next two years perhaps.

Collectively, the BRICS group account for 25 per cent of global gross domestic product (GDP) and 40 per cent of the world's population. The idea of having their own development bank stemmed from a desire to reduce financial reliance on Western financial institutions, which they alleged only reflects the interests of the richer nations.

BRICS wants to create a development bank with an initial US$50 billion capital. But discussions stalled because they found it hard to decide if each should contribute a flat US$10 billion or if contributions should vary by the size of their respective economies.

Among the five member-nations, the worst affected, economy-wise, is Brazil. In 2012, it registered a dismal 0.9 per cent growth rate compared from a 7.5 per cent in 2010. For 2013, it expects to grow to only not more than four per cent, a figure labelled as already ambitious by experts.