Will Congress stop Facebook’s Libra?
By Neil Haggerty
The rush to hold hearings in both the House and Senate on Facebook’s plan to develop an alternative payment system reflects broad skepticism of the idea across the political spectrum, but lawmakers are unlikely to tackle the issue legislatively. Congress — at least for now — will find other ways to convey lawmakers’ concerns, observers said. …“What Congress could do … is understand better how the payment system works,” said Karen Shaw Petrou, managing partner of Federal Financial Analytics. “Where the risks lie, whether it’s crypto or tech platform payment products, and ensure very quickly that the U.S. payment system is robust. Right now it isn’t.” “We have a very sound interbank payment system,” Petrou continued, “but tech platform companies are very quickly cherry-picking that and becoming payment system agents in varying ways without necessarily the capital and liquidity to support their payment system risks.”
https://www.americanbanker.com/news/will-congress-stop-facebooks-libra
