Facebook Registers Its New FinTech Company Libra Networks In Switzerland

Facebook is giving a push to its crypto plans and the social media mogul has registered a new FinTech firm in the crypto-friendly European nation of Switzerland. Dubbed as the Libra Networks, Facebook will further all its crypto-related plans under this company.

As per the Reuters report, Facebook Global Holdings will be stakeholder in this FinTech firm and will provide “financial and technology services and develop related hardware and software, plans submitted on the Swiss register reveal”. It also notes that the Libra Networks will focus on “investing, payments, financing, identity management, analytics, big data, blockchain and other technologies”.

Identity Management is one area where Facebook is putting a lot of focus after the social media giant faced severe issues with data distribution in the last two years. Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has expressed his interest in using the blockchain tech for implementing “distributed logins”.

He said: “You basically take your information, you store it on some decentralized system, and you have the choice of whether to log in in different places, and you’re not going through an intermediary.”

In the last few months, Facebook has been aggressively working on its plans of having a native cryptocurrency which will most-probably be a stablecoin tied to the U.S. Dollar. The company earlier planned to launch its ‘Facebook Coin’ across its entire suite of messaging applications including WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger.

However, a report from the Wall Street Journal earlier this month stated that Facebook is currently talking to payment processing giants like Visa and Mastercard. To give a big push to its native crypto project, Facebook is also talking to several e-commerce platforms and apps to integrate its crypto payments systems.

In February 2019, the New York Times published a report stating that Facebook is reportedly looking to raise $1 billion for its crypto project. As a result, Facebook is reportedly asking e-commerce companies and merchants to become their network partners.

Nathaniel Popper, the author of the NY Times report wrote that “Given that one of the big allures of blockchain projects is the decentralization, getting outside investors could help Facebook present the project as more decentralized and less controlled by Facebook.”

Earlier this month, Facebook also relaxed its policy for ads on blockchain and cryptocurrency projects.