San Francisco (AFP)

New major setback for Libra: PayPal, one of the partners of Facebook's digital currency project, leaves the ship after weeks of skepticism, even hostility, from various governments, experts and competitors.

California's payment services company did not justify its decision, saying it was withdrawing from Libra, a consortium of partners like Visa and Mastercard, to whom Facebook has entrusted the management of the currency. They must also invest at least $ 10 million in the project each.

The news did not surprise, however; rumors circulated in the press. Asked by AFP in September, Gabrielle Rabinovitch, Director of Investor Relations at PayPal, recalled that the commitment made by his company was "non-binding".

"It takes daring and a certain moral strength to undertake a project as ambitious as Libra - the opportunity for our generation to do things well and improve financial inclusion", responded Dante Disparte, the Libra association.

"The determination to accomplish this mission is more than anything for us, and we prefer to be aware of this lack of resolve as soon as possible," he said.

Libra is expected to offer starting in the course of 2020 a new payment method outside the traditional banking channels, to buy goods or send money as easily as an instant message.

- "Not ready" -

But the project is provoking growing hostility from many regulators and governments. They are particularly worried about Facebook's bad reputation for privacy and protection of personal data. They also fear that the Libra will be used to deceive the taxman.

The size of Facebook, the world's largest social network with 2.7 billion users (including Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger ...), also implies that the new currency could disrupt the global financial system and make it more difficult for central banks.

A source close to the company told the Financial Times that it "seems that there has been little preparatory work done with the financial regulators" and that payment services such as Paypal did not "want" see regulators' attention spilling over their business. "

The US Treasury has sent requests to partners to request a full review of their anti-money laundering programs, according to a source close to the organizations concerned.

The Libra wants to be a tool likely to interest especially those excluded from the banking system, in emerging countries for example - an ambition that corresponds to that displayed by PayPal, to "democratize access to financial services for underserved populations."

"I did not see any evidence that Libra was going to be able to do that," said Martin Chorzempa of AFP's Peterson Institute for International Economics.

"Often people are excluded from the existing financial system because of the laws that force banks to" know their client ", designed to prevent money laundering," he explains. "Libra does not seem to me at all ready to fulfill these obligations".

- "Long and difficult" -

The expert admits that the size of Facebook can play in favor of companies that develop very sophisticated financial technologies, without having a huge network of users - a currency with chances of success that if many people use it.

"But if we look at their previous attempts in the sector ... The Facebook Credits + have not been really successful," he says.

This currency created in 2009, which could only be used on the platform and some third-party applications, should encourage users to spend even more time on the network, and thus enable it to increase its advertising revenue. It was abandoned in 2013.

"The trip will be long and difficult," acknowledged Dante Disparte of the Libra association.

The tech giants have begun to build galaxies of devices and services that keep users in their ecosystem rather than the neighbor, while trying to improve their image, damaged by scandals about privacy or even accusations of making financial arrangements to pay the least taxes possible.

"I deeply believe that money should stay in the hands of the States I am not comfortable with the idea that a private group creates a competing currency A private company does not have to seek to gain power through this, "Apple CEO Tim Cook told Les Echos newspaper on Friday, not hesitating to throw an extra leg into Libra's already skating wheels.

© 2019 AFP