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Mark Zuckerberg delays on libra

Mark Zuckerberg ready to postpone the launch of libra, his much-maligned cryptocurrency originally scheduled for early 2020. The CEO of Facebook was auditioned yesterday in Washington by the members of the Financial Services Committee of the House of Representatives. In the limelight of the incisive questions of the parliamentarians for more than three hours, he tried to reassure. He will wait for the green light of the regulators. The latter, from the United States to Europe, remain worried about this cryptocurrency project.

The outcry came as soon as the libra was announced last June by Facebook and its partners. Meanwhile, seven of its partners and not least have left the ship including PayPal, Visa, MasterCard or eBay. Probably because of the pressure.

Because the alternative payment method proposed by Facebook and others does not reassure. In many ways. As a reminder, the libra is what is called a stable cryptocurrency (unlike bitcoin for example whose management is decentralized and is very volatile).

Facebook and its partners ensure that its management is centralized, secure and robust. Its value would be based on a basket of currencies or assets deemed safe as low-risk government bonds. Solid, what?

For many politicians, this raises questions

Because important private interests would have the hand on a currency, it is a questioning of the sovereignty of the States, lambasted for example Bruno the Mayor in a recent tribune in the Financial Times . Because Facebook is 2.4 billion users (between Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp networks). The strike force is such that it would be enough to destabilize the financial system.

While Facebook today presents its project primarily as a global payment system that could mitigate the underbanking especially in developing countries, politicians fear that it distracts people from their national currency and weakens it further. .

In Europe, France, Italy and Germany want to ban libra. Beyond the risk to the sovereignty of states, they warn that lack of sufficient controls, Libra runs dangers in terms of money laundering, financing of terrorism, but also protection of consumer data.

Yesterday in Washington, Mark Zuckerberg did not escape the reminder of recent scandals involving the group

There has even been less talk of libra than criticism of political ads and lack of control after the scandals, the cases of mass leakage of user data.

But it's almost the same debate, because on arrival, it's about trust. When we talk about the use of money, trust is key. Can we trust Facebook to see the general interest rather than its private interests? The young billionaire conceded that he was ready to wait to meet all the requirements of the regulators. And so to repel his new planetary dream.

But faced with parliamentarians pressing last night, he also defended and sought to make vibrate the patriotic rope (especially with Republicans). The United States could use libra to continue to dominate the world's finance, he suggested. For, according to him, the Chinese have worked hard on cryptocurrency and plan to launch very soon a digital reminbi. So they could come to the point in the matter, warned Mark Zuckerberg.

► In short,

In France, banks are accused of not respecting their commitments to so-called " fragile " customers

"Fragile customers" are those who accumulate payment incidents, or are declared over-indebted. After the onset of the "yellow vests" movement, the banks pledged to the government's call to cap at 25 euros per month the cost of banking incidents in order to spare these customers. But they do not do it, or not enough, according to the magazine 60 million consumers and the National Union of Family Associations, which interviewed about one hundred fragile customers among eight banking networks. " 78% of bank bans and over-indebtedness have no cap, " according to this study.