Since the beginning of the global financial crisis in 2008, the architecture of global economic governance has undergone substantial changes. Although much progress has been made in reducing ‘democracy deficit’ which had long plagued international economic institutions, the traditional ‘legitimacy-operativeness’ dilemma is still in place. To cope with this dilemma, multilateral regulatory initiatives should be supplemented by a country-club approach in areas where serious interest mismatch of major global players is present. Recent financial initiatives of the BRICS countries are revealing examples of potential gains such an approach can bring without affecting any third party negatively.