Samuel Oskys
European Competition Commissioner (ECC) Margrethe Vestager expressed that this examination was justified even though it hasn’t been launched yet.
We can look at new services even before they’re introduced. That’s what we’re doing right now, with Facebook’s plan for a new cryptocurrency, known as Libra, which it announced back in June, she said at a conference in Norway.
She continued,
We’re looking at whether those proposals create risks for competition, so we can be ready to act swiftly if an intervention were to prove necessary.
Approximately a month ago, questionnaires were sent out by Vestager to 28 members of the Libra Association who govern the new currency and was enquiring about the membership conditions. Within the same document, the Commissioner requested information such as how Libra-backed services will be integrated into Facebook platforms like Whatsapp, Messenger, Instagram and Calibra, how the consumer information will be used and who would own this data.
The latter question is what has alerted politicians, central bankers and enforcers, the fact that Libra could potentially be a threat to the global financial system and possibly be used for money laundering.
