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Facebook’s mission is to “bring the world closer together”. Increasingly, it’s not just about connecting friends and family to share messages, but also serving as a platform for people’s financial lives.
David Marcus, who heads the company’s financial services unit, said Facebook made nearly $100 billion in payments last year. But this is just the beginning of the social network’s ambitions in the financial industry, says Mr. Marcus. in a new note about the country’s “broken” payment system, reported DealBook newsletter.
At the heart of Facebook’s payment process is Novi, a digital wallet that aims to help users move their money around the world quickly and cheaply (for free in most cases). Company they had plans To pair with a “stable coin” cryptocurrency called Libra, but that was shelved during regulatory reviews and is now scaled down projectIt is overseen by a nonprofit outside group known as Diem, which seeks necessary government approvals.
In describing some of Facebook’s glitches trying to break into crypto Mr. Marcus talks about the tech giant who is the subject of the payments industry. antitrust Research worldwide, as an oppressed.
Facebook is facing unfair resistance in the financial industry, he wrote. “I’ve heard a lot of talk about how this offering would have been so great if Facebook weren’t involved,” he said. “I understand and accept the need for extra scrutiny because of our scale.”
However, Mr. Marcus describes Facebook as a “challengers in the payments industry” with no specific plans yet to monetize the use of the Novi wallet, which will not charge for person-to-person payments even across borders.
He added that allowing users to pay in dollars, euros and other fiat currencies through the Novi wallet would bring a lot of value.
“Then why don’t we just do that and call it a day?” He wrote. “Well, we can be.” But before deciding that, he doesn’t want to “waste our chance” to incorporate stablecoins into an “open, interoperable protocol” for online payments. “Building a closed system using only fiat to achieve maximum effect wasn’t going to cut it,” the note said.
Crypto advocates say that blockchain technology allows products that eliminate middlemen, credit checks and fees, allowing people excluded from traditional financial services to transact anytime, anywhere. Mr. Marcus believes that a well-designed stablecoin pegged to fiat currency and backed by peer-to-peer cash reserves can offer strong consumer protections. It will also be faster to access funds. traditional bank accounts.
In practice, regulators are wary of stablecoins. An investigation of the popular stablecoin Tether by the New York attorney general’s office found that the company is printing tokens for free. reserves to support them. In recent weeks, crypto tokens have voiced the concerns of Treasury secretary Janet Yellen; Gary Gensler, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission; and Senator Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts Democrat.
Mr. Marcus is trying to address these concerns. He added that the Novi wallet has licenses or approvals in almost every US state, and that the Diem stablecoin project “addresses every legitimate concern.”
Facebook’s digital wallet is ready to hit the market, said Mr. Marcus, and “we deserve a fair chance.” Given the difficulties Facebook has gotten to this point, regulators remain convinced.
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