Following the thread on the new proposal that Facebook made with its virtual currency, Libra, was unveiled Some days ago that PayPal, Visa, MasterCard and other financial partners Facebook key under the Libra project they could reconsider their participation in this initiative given the hostility of global regulators, governments and financial institutions towards this cryptocurrency
For those unfamiliar with Libra I can tell you that this is a cryptocurrency intended to buy goods or send money as easily as a message. With it Libra aims to offer a new means of payment outside of traditional banking channels.
Given this it seems that the United States Department of the Treasury has submitted requests to Facebook's financial partners as part of the Libra project for a full review of your anti-money laundering programsWhile payment services like PayPal, Visa and MasterCard did not want to "draw the attention of regulators to their business."
Officials of the Libra Association and the sponsors of Libra, whowho had apparently made a "non-binding" commitment with the project by supporting Mark Zuckerberg's company, They did not want to draw the attention of regulators and rejected requests from Facebook to publicly support the project, according to a report.
And it must be remembered that in the United States, the Secretary of the United States Treasury Department "Steven Mnuchin" and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell did not hide that they had "many serious concerns" about money laundering that could generate with Libra.
In addition to regulation, privacy protection, consumer protection and financial stability. Powell has called on Facebook to suspend the Libra project until financial market regulators' concerns are completely dissipated.
Donald Trump, who shares the point of view of the «crypto-skeptics», I had already commented on this:
“If Facebook and other companies want to become a bank, they must look for a new bank letter and be subject to all banking regulations, like other banks, national and international. I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is very volatile and based on air.
While in the case of France, in this country had announced its intention to guarantee that the international community establish a framework for Facebook's future crypto currency to remain just a trading instrument without becoming a currency, but he stressed that he is against the development of Libra on European soil.
Subsequently, Paris and Berlin pledged to block the launch of Libra in Europe and to support the development of a public virtual currency together with the European Central Bank.
Separately, Reuters reported last week that Facebook may postpone the launch of Libra to address regulatory concerns that have been raised around the world, as the company announced plans to launch the digital currency in June 2020.
David Marcus from Facebook, whowho oversees the Calibra project assured in a tweet that he was not aware of the disclaimers mentioned above. In this regard, he said:
"I can tell you that we are working very calmly and confidently to resolve the legitimate concerns that Libra has raised by bringing conversations about the value of digital currencies to the fore."
In Switzerland, an official from FINMA, the Federal Financial Market Supervisory Authority, which Facebook described as Libra's main financial regulator, said it was most concerned about cryptocurrency projects developed outside of any official control "and who will one day be. too big to be arrested "than for the Libra project which, according to him," is done with total transparency.
The same official reiterated that Libra will be subject to strict rules that generally apply to banks in addition to strict anti-money laundering laws, but that Switzerland will not raise additional obstacles to the project.
In this regard, he said: "We are not here to frustrate such projects"