Brussels, October 18, 2019 (Agence Europe) – On the sidelines of the G20 meeting and the Annual Meetings of the IMF and the World Bank, Thursday October 17 in Washington, the Finance Ministers of the G7 countries set their conditions for the development of stable cryptocurrencies, such as Facebook's Libra. They indeed adopted the report of the working group on stable currencies (EUROPE B12279A12), coordinated by Benoît Cœuré, member of the executive board of the ECB, which had been requested by France in June, just after Facebook's announcement of its cryptocurrency project (EUROPE B12277A24). “We agree that no stablecoin digital currency projects should be launched until the legal, regulatory and supervisory issues and risks have been adequately addressed,” reads a statement from the French G7 Presidency, which takes up the main recommendations of the report. The final report does not specifically target Libra, but confirms that stablecoins, in general, pose legal, regulatory and oversight challenges and risks related to, among other things, security, money laundering, market integrity, as well as data protection (EUROPE B12299A11). According to the French Minister of Finance, Bruno Le Maire, this also poses risks in terms of competition and, above all, risks for the monetary sovereignty of countries. "The current legal framework is clearly not ready to control all these risks or to protect consumers who use this currency," he told reporters in Washington. If the report mainly details the risks, it also provides some recommendations to control them and in particular to coordinate the monitoring standards that the countries set for these new technologies. However, this does not mean that the G7 countries are against technologies and financial innovation, insisted Mr. Le Maire. Central banks will also assess, in the long term, whether they should issue virtual currencies themselves, he said. The statement by the G7 Presidency also welcomes the “cooperation” of the G20, which also assesses the needs for a multilateral response to stable currencies, and in particular the work of the Financial Stability Board (EUROPE B12351A15).

>