CGD in the News

Facebook's digital currency Libra: Why nonprofits are joining (Devex)

June 24, 2019

From the article:

Facebook, together with 27 partners ranging from Visa to Mercy Corps, has unveiled a new global currency built on blockchain.

The company has been working on Libra for more than a year, but it is distancing itself from directly managing the cryptocurrency. Facebook created Calibra, the digital wallet that will store the currency, as a subsidiary that company representatives said will not be allowed to share financial customer data with other divisions of the company.

One appeal of cryptocurrency is that it could allow actors to bypass the international correspondent banking system, which generates a lot of the costs and delays associated with cross border transactions, said Michael Pisa, a policy fellow at the Center for Global Development, in an email to Devex.