Facebook's last dream hits a real wall, the one that the financial system has raised before Libra. The cryptocurrency that the social network tries to boost is forced to reconfigure its companies. This is because some of the big companies that encouraged this disruptive global payment method, apart from banks, have ended up getting out of the project.
The casualties are especially relevant, because they concentrate on the group of giants dedicated to paying as a business: Visa, Mastercard, eBay and Stripe have repented, a week after PayPal also did. This has been confirmed by sources from Libra to THE WORLD.
Therefore, it would only remain within that PayU sector, which is part of the Napster technology. In addition, the Argentine fintech Mercado Pago leaves the association, as confirmed by the association to this newspaper.
The disruption was known shortly before the first official meeting of Libra, an association that originally had 28 founding members, among which stands out above the rest Facebook. From the meeting in Geneva (Switzerland), this Monday, there will be a cryptocurrency supported by different partners. This week will be known the final list of members of the association, already without references such as Visa or Mastercard, giants who invited to trust this challenge to the financial system.
"It's not good news in the short term, but in a sense it is liberating," said David Marcus, one of the creators of Libra and head of Calibra, a subsidiary of Facebook dedicated to this project, on social networks. The person in charge has thanked Visa and MasterCard via Twitter for having endured so much time on board, since "the pressure has been intense" . Marcus has pointed out: "A change of this magnitude is hard. You know you are in something important when such pressure arises."
Dante Disparte, responsible for Communications of Libra, has responded to this newspaper with the official version: "Although the appearance of the members of the association may grow and change over time, the main design of technology and governance of Libra , as well as the open nature of this project, guarantees that the payment network of Libra will resist ".
The launch delay
As EL MUNDO has said, Libra has had to delay its launch: in recent weeks it was no longer calculated for June 2020, but for the second half of next year. These adjustments are a consequence of the wave of concern generated by governments, regulators and banks, since Libra would facilitate financial transactions without the need for interested parties to be linked to a bank account or a financial entity. In addition, Libra hopes to avoid the usual volatility in cryptocurrencies by being subject to a basket of securities among which currencies such as the dollar, the euro, the pound sterling and the Singapore dollar would be counted.
From the association, contacted by this newspaper, remember that Monday's meeting will take place even if Visa or MasterCard do not participate. The goal of Libra is to reach a hundred partners when the final launch takes place.
Libra was presented last June, with an argument as a flag: 1.7 billion people in the world live without relating to banks; Of these, 1,000 million have a -480 million mobile with internet access. The association aspires to provide financial services to this huge segment of the world population, and would do so without applying commissions on the transactions made. To achieve this, the association is currently under review by supervisors, specifically the observation of the Swiss financial authority, FINMA, which has not yet provided its verdict on the project.
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