Representatives of 25 central banks will meet the top management of the Facebook project to discuss the Libra stablecoin.
This was reported by the Financial Times, which also revealed that the meeting will take place today at the Commission on Payments and Market Infrastructure (CPMI) of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), in Basel, Switzerland.
The CPMI consists of 28 banks, including the central banks of the USA (Federal Reserve Bank of New York), China (PBoC), the eurozone (ECB), Japan (BoJ), Great Britain (Bank of England), Switzerland (Swiss National Bank), and so on.
This will be the first time that the Libra project managers will meet with central bank representatives, although there have already been discussions in the past, but only with individual banks.
Today’s meeting will bring together representatives of the world’s leading central banks, so it will certainly be far more relevant compared to previous meetings.
One of the representatives attending the meeting, ECB manager Benoit Coeure, said that the level of regulatory approval by Libra will be very high, so these meetings are necessary to ensure that the parties can reach an agreement that will allow the project to proceed in full compliance with all existing legislation.
The meeting is likely to take place in an atmosphere that is not particularly favourable to Libra.
For one thing, the BIS has always been very critical of cryptocurrencies in general, and recently some politicians in France and Germany have stated that they are against the development of the project in the European Union.
China also seems to want to oppose the project, therefore the opposers seem to be a well-stocked group.
The Swiss environment seems to be more favourable to the project, where in fact the meeting will take place, but the power of the Swiss central bank in this gathering could prove to be marginal.
The new path of the European Central Bank, which will begin in November with the inauguration of the new governor, may also prove to be favourable to Libra, or at least not particularly hostile, but this may not be enough to obtain the green light.
In fact, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has already announced that they will not proceed without the green light, so these meetings are crucial for the future of the project, as they will have to convince money market regulators to approve it.
The launch of the stablecoin on the market would be scheduled for the second half of next year, so in theory, there should be plenty of time to allow the regulators themselves to verify the validity of the project and compliance with the legislation, so as to obtain final approval and eventually launch it on the market.
