Benoit
Coeure, a board member of the European Central Bank, said that
Facebook’s Libra coin will not launch until global regulators are
satisfied.
Speaking
to Reuters at the G7 summit in Chantilly, France on July 18, Coeure
said that the proposed stablecoin must be guaranteed to be safe for
users before it can launch:
“You’ve got to be safe, robust and resilient from day one. It’s not a learning process: either it works or it doesn’t.”
Coeure
stated that guaranteeing the protection of user privacy and ownership
rights may require significant consideration and lengthy discussion by
regulators:
“Down the road we might find
that there are gaps or inconsistencies that would require a prolonged
discussion by regulators on how to do it differently. Authorities are
not going to let any such projects happen before we have answers to our
questions and before we have the right regulatory framework.”
Earlier this month, Coeure called
for fast action from global regulators in regard to Libra. The ECB
official said that allowing the introduction of a totally new asset like
Libra on such a large scale, without proper regulations and safeguards,
would be irresponsible.
Coeure also stated that the rapid
development of digital and crypto assets has exposed gaps and
shortcomings in existing regulatory structures and has underlined how
slow banks are to adopt new technologies.
“All
these projects are a rather useful wake-up call for regulators and
public authorities, as they encourage us to raise a number of questions
and might make us improve the way we do things.”
The
official’s G7 working group on stablecoins will reportedly explore the
issue leading up to the International Monetary Fund’s yearly meeting in
October, whereupon he will purportedly pass the work along to the
Financial Stability Board.
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