ZURICH/LONDON (Reuters) - Facebook’s (FB.O) planned cryptocurrency Libra will be linked to individual national currencies and overseen by global watchdogs in a scaled-back revamp it hopes will win regulatory approval.
The prospect of Facebook’s 2.5 billion users adopting Libra has led to intense scrutiny from global regulators, with many worried its launch could erode national control over money.
Libra’s governing body, which is seeking the go-ahead from Switzerland’s markets watchdog, said on Thursday that it will now offer “stablecoins” backed by single currencies, as well as a redesigned token based on these currency-pegged coins.
The original plan was for Libra, which was unveiled last June, to be backed by a wide mixture of currencies and government debt. But central banks and regulators feared it could destabilise monetary policy, facilitate money laundering and erode users’ privacy, with some threatening to block it.
In response, the Libra Association, which will issue the coin and govern its network, said a “college” of central banks, regulators and enforcement agencies from more than 20 countries set up by Swiss watchdog FINMA will have a say in its bid to be licensed as a payments service provider in Switzerland.
The Geneva-based Libra Association declined to give details of the body’s membership and it was not immediately clear how major regulators would respond to Libra’s updated plans.
Libra, which had planned to launch by the end of June, now aims to do so between mid-November and the end of the year, Dante Disparte, its head of policy and communications, said.
Some countries, including France and Germany, had said they would seek to block Libra’s
