Facebook’s Libra project cannot be accepted without a strong set of rules, told France’s Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire on Wednesday, APA reports citing CNBC.
Facebook’s latest plan for a cryptocurrency - Libra - has been heavily criticized by policymakers around the world, including U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. Speaking to CNBC ahead of a meeting of finance ministers from the seven largest world economies, Le Maire said that Libra raises questions about money laundering and terrorism financing.
“I would say this is, first of all, a question of sovereignty. You have states, the United States, France, Germany, Italy — all sovereign states with sovereign currencies: dollar, euro and so on and they are sticking to some very strong commitments, some very strong rules. We cannot accept a new currency having the exact same kind of power, without the same kind of rules, without the same kind of commitments and without the same kind of obligations,” Bruno Le Maire told CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick in Chantilly, France.
“There is also a concern about money laundering, there’s a concern about the funding of terrorism,” Le Maire also said.
“How could we accept to have now a new currency which wouldn’t stick to the same kind of obligation(s),” he added.
In an attempt to address some of the ongoing concerns over its cryptocurrency plan, Facebook said on Tuesday that Switzerland’s data protection agency will oversee data and privacy protections. However, CNBC reported later on Tuesday that Facebook hasn’t actually reached out to the Swiss regulator.
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