Banks and financial regulators across the world are concerned about Facebook’s plan to launch digital currency Libra as it threatens the global financial status quo.
There is even speculation among bankers that Libra may never take off.
Listen to GHOGH with Jamarlin Martin | Episode 53: Frederick Hutson
Part 1: Jamarlin talks to justice-tech pioneer Frederick Hutson, who founded Pigeonly to create communications products for inmates and their families that reduce the destructive impact of incarceration. They talk about his time in the pen for selling marijuana, developing the Pigeonly idea on the inside, and raising capital from investors. They discuss Pigeonly defeating lobbyists from the prison industrial complex and how we can weaponize technology to fight back and solve problems that disproportionately impact African Americans.
Facebook, backed by high-profile tech companies that do not include any banks, announced in June that it plans to issue Libra coin.
The move has been opposed by regulators from the U.S. and other countries including China who consider the digital coin to be a big risk to global financial stability.
A currency like Libra is able to thrive due to the expensive hidden charges and unnecessary red-tape involved with wire transfers created by banks, according to a Euro Money report.
Libra is actually not the first digital currency to be created, but it appears to pose the biggest threat to the global banking system.
Already in China, a country of 1.4 billion people, more than 94 percent of mobile payments are made via WeChat Pay and Alipay.
Some banks in the U.S. and Europe are already contemplating their own digital currencies to beat Libra to the chase.
Facebook has indicated it was having conversations with banks and hoped to have some of them on board by the time Libra Launches next year, Financial Times reported.
In the meanwhile, most banks are replying to Facebook’s request with a “No thank you”.
