A US delegation will visit Switzerland over Libra concerns. The committee will be checking up on the regulations surrounding the virtual currency from Facebook. This is according to a report from Cointelegraph.
A US House of Representatives delegation is scheduled to visit Switzerland to look into the concerns surrounding Libra, the Virtual Currency from Facebook. Libra is a token from the Calibra Association, a group owned by Facebook. The association is registered in Switzerland and that may be a cause for concern to the US government.
The Libra stable-coin is still making the news but not for any progress. A group of US House Representatives will be travelling to Switzerland to review the regulations surrounding the Virtual Currency. It has not yet been released and is awaiting a nod from the US congress.
Libra, so far
The Libra coin may turn out to be dead in the water according to skeptics. However, the recent news of US House Members making their way to Switzerland may turn the tide. Libra has caused enormous waves in the US government recently.
CEO of Calibra, David Marcus, has had to sit in front of Congress twice in the span of a week to answer questions on the Libra. The members accused Facebook of being untrustworthy in every regard. They also suggested that Facebook is trying to be a Bank without the regulations. Marcus has released a statement saying that Libra was only built to eliminate the middlemen in international transactions.
US visits Switzerland over Libra concerns as renewed hope for the Virtual currency surges.
The Visit
As local weekly news outlet NZZ am Sonntag reported on Aug. 17, a six-member delegation from the House Financial Services Committee is going to meet with Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC) Adrian Lobsiger to exchange views about digital currencies.
A spokesperson told NZZ am Sonntag that Libra will be the focal point of the dialogue between the regulator and U.S. lawmakers. The delegation is led by the chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee, Maxine Waters, who previously requested that Facebook halt Libra’s development until the purported risks it poses could be properly understood.
What will they looking at?
The visit from U.S. legislators aims to clarify regulatory issues surrounding Libra. In hearings before the House Financial Services Committee in July, some representatives expressed their discomfort with the coin being regulated from Switzerland.
In the hearings, Facebook’s David Marcus assured Representative Bill Huizenga that Facebook had been in touch with the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority.
The head of communications at the FDPIC, Hugo Wyler, subsequently said that Facebook had not contacted the regulator regarding the registration of its cryptocurrency project. The FDPIC then sent a letter to the Libra Association — the stablecoin’s proposed governing body — asking for details about Libra:
“The FDPIC stated in his letter that as he had not received any indication on what personal data may be processed, the Libra Association should inform him of the current status of the project so that he could assess the extent to which his advisory competences and supervisory powers would apply.”
During a hearing before U.S. House of Representatives in mid-July, Marcus fielded questions as to why the company had chosen to register its Libra Association in Switzerland rather than the U.S. “The choice of Switzerland,” Marcus claimed, had “nothing to do with evading regulations or oversight.” Marcus argued that the jurisdiction is an international place conducive to doing business.
US visits Switzerland over Libra concerns as renewed hope for the Virtual currency surges.
