The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is the latest financial regulator to respond to Facebook’s cryptocurrency project Libra, with the British watchdog stating there was not enough detail to properly understand the social media giant’s plans.
Speaking to the United Kingdom parliament’s Treasury Select Committee this Tuesday, Andrew Bailey, the Chief Executive of the FCA said that Facebook needs to provide more detail on its plans to expand into Payments and launch its own Libra coin, according to a report from Reuters.
This is because Facebook’s project has the potential to have a large influence on public policy and could change the cryptocurrency space as we know it. Therefore, Facebook needs to give more details on the Libra before it is launched, the head of the regulator said.
Commenting on the situation, Bailey said: “They are not going to walk through authorisation without that.”
Furthermore, Bailey outlined that the FCA, Bank of England and Britain’s finance minister are working together on the Facebook proposal. Already, the watchdog has reached out to the social network company and expects to have many more engagements with the firm.
Lawmakers React to Facebook’s Libra
Since Facebook published the whitepaper for its stablecoin and network, Libra, regulators around the world have been responding to what could be a massive change to the financial industry.
In the United States, the reaction from the government has been largely negative, with both the US Senate and the House announcing hearings on Facebook’s project next month, as Finance Magnates reported.
Across the pond, some European regulators have been calmer in their approach to Facebook’s cryptocurrency project. On the 20th of June, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said that “The Bank of England approaches Libra with an open mind but not an open door.”
“Unlike social media for which standards and regulations are being debated well after they have been adopted by billions of users, the terms of engagement for innovations such as Libra must be adopted in advance of any launch,” he said, adding in a separate interview that “it has to be safe, or it’s not going to happen.”
As Finance Magnates reported, France has also launched a G7 Task Force with the intent to look at how regulators can ensure digital assets meet compliance standards, ranging from customer protection rules to anti-money laundering legislation, according to Francois Villeroy de Galhau.
At the upcoming Barcelona Trading Conference (BTC), our crypto Editor Rachel McIntosh will be speaking with a number of industry experts on Regulation in the cryptocurrency space on the Regulatory Rally: a Deep Dive into Crypto’s Legal Landscape panel.
