Japan’s Central Bank Chief Pushes For Global Effort To Regulate Libra 

Bank of Japan Head Haruhiko Kuroda spoke to business leaders in Osaka about the importance of having a coordinated global plan to regulate Libra and other cryptocurrencies, Reuters reported on Tuesday (Sept. 24).

“If Libra is introduced, it could have a huge impact on society,” Kuroda said in a speech on Monday (Sept. 23). He urged policymakers to ensure that the highest level of regulation is applied to such assets.

Calibra Head David Marcus has emphasized that Libra is a “better payment network and system running on top of existing currencies” and is not a new currency. The creation of money will “strictly remain the province of sovereign nations,” CoinTelegraph reported.

German Vice-Chancellor and Finance Minister Olaf Scholz also recently said that parallel currency would be rejected.

Libra also is being rejected by Europe because the “monetary sovereignty of states is at stake,” French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire previously said.

Japanese authorities formed a task force in July to study the impact of Facebook’s proposed cryptocurrency.

The task force – made up of the Bank of Japan, the Ministry of Finance and the Financial Services Agency – met ahead of the G7 conference of finance ministers in France from July 17-18.

The group investigated how Libra would impact monetary policy, as well as the stability of the financial landscape. The group’s goal is to work on policies to deal with how Libra will affect payments, monetary policy, regulation and taxes.

There have been many voices opposed to Libra, including Ethereum Co-founder Mihai Alisie, who recently said Facebook is trying to trick regulators

Bank of England Governor Mark Carney has also questioned Libra. He recently said Libra can’t be the same unregulated type of service as Facebook.

“The Bank of England approaches Libra with an open mind but not an open door,” Carney said. “Unlike social media … the terms of engagement for innovations such as Libra must be adopted in advance of any launch.”