Facebook says it is willing to postpone its digital currency until the concerns of the US treasury and other regulators are gone. David Marcus, head of Facebook’s Libra unit, had criticism from US senators about the cryptocurrency which will run with firms such as Visa and PayPal.
Facebook was planning to launch its own cryptocurrency in early 2020, it will allow users to make digital payments in a handful of countries. The currency is known as GlobalCoin, it would enable Facebook users to change dollars and many other international countries into digital coins which could be used to make payments or transfer money without needing a bank account.
Many worries have been voiced about if the platform should be trusted with data and the financial sector after they had data breaches with the Cambridge Analytic scandal.
Mr Marcus said: “To earn people’s trust, we will have to have the highest standards when it comes to privacy, and the way we’ve built Calibra is that no financial data or account data that is collected in Calibra to offer the service will actually be shared with Facebook,”
“The way we’ve built this is to separate social and financial data because we’ve heard loud and clear that they don’t want those two types of data streams connected, so this is the way the system is designed.
“Facebook will only have one vote and will not be in a position to control the association, nor will Facebook or the Libra Association position themselves to compete with sovereign currencies or interfere with monetary policy.
“The Calibra wallet will not share individual customer data with the Libra Association or with Facebook, except for limited circumstances such as preventing fraud or criminal activity in complying with the law.”
Senator Sherrod Brown said: “We’d be crazy to give them a chance to let them experiment with people’s bank accounts.”
Mr Brown also said it would be “delusional” to think people would trust social media with their money.
