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Facebook President and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before the House Financial Services Committee about “A Facebook Review and its Impact on the Financial Services and Housing Sectors” at the Rayburn House office building in Washington, DC , on October 23, 2019.
Mandal Ngan | AFP | fake pictures
British payments company Checkout.com has joined the Libra Association, the digital currency project created by Facebook last year.
Checkout.com is the first payment processor to join the initiative after US giants Visa, Mastercard and Stripe pulled out due to regulatory concerns in October. In recent weeks, other companies have said they will back Libra, including e-commerce giant Shopify, nonprofit Heifer International, and cryptocurrency broker Tagomi.
Facebook introduced Libra in June as a global currency that would allow users to make faster and cheaper cross-border payments. But the project quickly sparked the wrath of policymakers around the world who feared it could greatly disrupt the financial system, risk possible money laundering, and compete with fiat currencies like the US dollar.
Checkout.com CEO and co-founder Guillaume Pousaz acknowledged that blockchain, a technology originally conceived as the network that supports Bitcoin, needs to be regulated when it comes to payment processing. He added that the members of the Libra Association “share” that philosophy.
“In recent years, we have witnessed the birth of various native digital currencies from afar,” Pousaz wrote in a blog post on Tuesday. “We are technologists at heart and have always been fascinated by blockchain and the potential benefits it could bring to global transaction processing.”
But he said regulation should be “comprehensive” because of its “unique ability to protect the ecosystem from systemic abuse.”
“In the absence of such regulation, we fundamentally believe that technological advances alone could not provide the secure and stable payment infrastructure necessary to drive mass adoption, impeding its progress,” he added.
Dante Disparte, head of policy and communications for the Libra Association, said the group was “delighted” to welcome Checkout.com as a member.
“The organization joins a dynamic and growing group of members of the Libra Association committed to achieving a secure, transparent and consumer-friendly implementation of a global payment system that breaks financial barriers for billions of people,” he said. Dispatch in a statement emailed to CNBC.
The Libra Association recently unveiled a review of its planned digital currency, proposing to launch several so-called “stablecoins” tied to different government currencies, as well as a single multi-currency pound token. The Swiss-based group applied for a payment license with local regulator Finma.
The association also said it would give up on its initial goal of moving to a blockchain system “without permission” that would have allowed anyone to contribute to the network. Instead, it decided on a more centralized structure to be governed by its now 24 members.
This means that the pound will be different from cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, as anyone with decent hardware and internet access can access and maintain the bitcoin network.
Checkout.com is a competitor of the stature of Stripe and the Dutch firm Adyen, which has made it easier to integrate online payments for businesses. Last year, the company was valued at $ 2 billion in its first round of financing, a $ 230 million deal that was agreed through handshakes, rather than traditional term sheets.
