Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg Will Testify Before US Congress This Month Over the Libra Project

Facebooks CEO Mark Zuckerberg is all set to testify before the U.S. lawmakers ahead this month on October 23, answering queries and concerns related to the Libra cryptocurrency.

On Wednesday, October 9, the House Financial Services Committee made an announcement that Zuckerberg will testify for a hearing titled “An Examination of Facebook and Its Impact on the Financial Services and Housing Sectors”.

Facebook has been facing massive regulatory backlash ever since it announced its Libra plans back in June 2019. This is not for the first time that a Facebook executive is appearing for a hearing on the Libra project.

In July 2019, Facebook’s blockchain division lead David Marcus appeared had testified explaining the potential benefits of getting Libra crypto in the market. This month’s hearing will be the third held by the US Congress.

In the latest press release, committee chairwoman Christine Waters has drafted a plan called “Keeping Big Tech Out of Finance Act”. The lawmakers had asked Facebook to halt development until it addresses the concerns of the regulators.

The Wednesday’s press release states: “The draft legislation prohibits large platform utilities, like Facebook, from becoming chartered, licensed or registered as a U.S. financial institution. The bill also prohibits large platform utilities from establishing, maintaining, or operating a digital asset that is intended to be widely used as medium of exchange, unit of account, store of value, or any other similar function as defined by the Federal Reserve.”

On the other hand, the Bank of England has finalized some rules if the Libra project plans to go live in the United Kingdom. The central bank’s Financial Policy Committee released its October Financial Policy wherein it mentions the Libra network as a “systemically important payment system”.

The committee states: “The FPC judges that such a system would need to meet the highest standards of resilience and be subject to appropriate supervisory oversight”.

Another document mentions that the Libra Association and other corresponding reserves of fiat currencies are of utmost importance. It states that other network participants, Libra-associated wallets and exchanges will also be under scrutiny.

The committee says: “The resilience of the proposed Libra system would rely on the stability of not just the core elements of the Libra Association and Libra Reserve but also the associated critical activities conducted by other firms in the Libra ecosystem such as validators, exchanges or wallet providers. This emphasized the need to ensure end-to-end resilience.”