U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin reported “very serious concerns about Libra, which could be misused for money laundering or terrorist financing.”
G7 finance ministers reached a “consensus” on Wednesday, July 17, that Facebook’s announcement of the Libra cryptocurrency project “needs rapid action,” G7 chair France said at the end of the first day of the meeting in Chantilly, in Oise.
“With regard to Libra, we had very constructive and detailed discussions and there was a broad consensus on the need to act quickly,” explained a French source, noting that all participants expressed their “concerns about the current situation” “.
Before the opening of the annual meeting of finance ministers, Bruno Le Maire had assured that the “conditions” for implementing Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency were “not met”.
A currency that can finance terrorism
“Today, we cannot accept an instrument of exchange that does not respect any prudential rules we impose on all sovereign currencies,” Bruno Le Maire estimated, welcoming the stance of his US counterpart Steven Mnuchin, who Facebook issued a warning.
“Treasury has very serious concerns about Libra, which could be misused for money laundering or terrorist financing,” the U.S. secretary said Monday on the eve of a Senate hearing for Facebook’s head of the Currency Project.
In Chantilly, German Minister Olaf Schultz also expressed his concerns. “The finance ministers and central bank governors gathered here express serious concern and have decided to carefully examine whether all existing regulations are being complied with (…) or whether they need to be amended to guarantee the stability of the international financial system in the future.”, he said Say.
With the creation of the digital currency announced in mid-June, which provides an alternative payment method to traditional banking circuits, Facebook hopes to disrupt the global financial system. Promising 2020, it is inspired by cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
