UK FCA’s Christopher Woolard says Libra would make traditional payment institutions redundant

Libra has  been criticized by governments and central banks all over the world and it seems that UK FCA’s Christopher Woolard has joined the bandwagon.

Speaking at the  P20 Global Payments Conference in London yesterday he said that  Libra  could disrupt the existing financial ecosystem and could make traditional payment institutions redundant.  Woolard suggested that these issues  would only be amplified  by the fiat currency and made it clear that the regulator only supports companies which innovate, collaborate and share data. All of which are factors that are crucial to reducing fraud in the financial sector.

“Historically, this may have been a sector that has lived by the mantra of ‘move fast and break things’, but the issues raised here require deep thought and detail.” according to Wollard.

He went on to say: “size and scale will pose questions for society and government more generally about what is acceptable and desirable in this space”.

It is clear this is going to be a long hard road for Libra and there were also comments from David Marcus the Co-founder of Libra stating:  “Change of this magnitude is hard and requires courage – it will be a long journey. For Libra to succeed it needs committed members, and while I have no knowledge of specific organisations’ plans to not step up, commitment to the mission is more important than anything else.”

Mark Carney from the Bank of England has also said that a crypto like product could replace the US dollar as the worlds reserve currency. He did go on to say that maybe some central banks should come together to create a viable alternative. One thing is for sure we are in for a bumpy ride.