A US Central Bank (Fed) official on Wednesday drew up a long list of regulatory challenges facing Facebook's Libra cryptocurrency project, days before Mark Zuckerberg's address to Congress. "What sets Facebook's Libra apart is the fact that the project combines a network of active users representing one-third of the world's population with the issuance of a digital currency that is backed opaquely by a shopping cart sovereign currencies," noted Fed Board member Lael Brainard in a speech on digital currencies in Washington. “Libra and any other stablecoin project globally must meet a series of regulatory and legal challenges before they can facilitate a payment,” she added. The intermediaries of the system, which will be cross-border, will have to ensure that they can identify users in order to avoid "illegal activities" and money laundering. Consumers will have to "be educated on their rights" which will be different from their relationship with banks where their deposits are insured within a certain limit and where fraudulent transactions are generally the responsibility of banking establishments. “It is unclear what kind of recourse consumers will be able to take and what risk they are taking, since it does not appear that they can claim rights to the assets on which these currencies are based,” again worried the governor of the Fed. She also underlined the need to clarify who would be considered responsible for the security of users' personal data and transaction information. “The large number of cyber breaches in recent years show the importance of these issues,” Ms. Brainard recalled. The regulatory framework of Switzerland, headquarters of the Libra association, must be looked at with a magnifying glass, she warns while in the United States, she recalls that the Fed does not have full authority over the payment system. whole. Another source of concern, these networks of "stablecoins" risk upsetting the banking model, even altering the role of central banks, does not hesitate to say the governor. “A large migration to one or more stable global cryptocurrency networks could remove banks from their role as intermediaries in payments,” she adds, as China begins to build its own virtual currency. If consumers and businesses reduce their deposits in commercial banks in favor of virtual wallets, "this could decrease sources of stable funds for banks", adds the official. The fall in demand for cash is also likely to affect central bank reserves. Such a virtual currency system is not immune to a bank crash-type "panic" nor a "loss of confidence" with risks of "contagion".

“Given what is at stake, networks of cryptocurrencies of this type (“stablecoins”) must expect to satisfy the most demanding legal and regulatory safeguards”, concluded the member of the Fed. This speech comes a few days before a hearing by Mark Zuckerberg on the subject before the American Congress. The Facebook boss will testify before a House of Representatives Finance Committee on October 23.