Mastercard CEO names reasons for quitting Libra Association

Mastercard CEO Ajay Banga commented on the company’s departure from the Libra Association,occurred in October last year.

In a conversation with the Financial Times, Banga said thatInitially, he was interested in the idea of ​​a global currency, but then questions arose about its legal compliance and commercial model, which prompted the payment giant to change its position. According to him, the key members of the project did not want to make a firm promise "not to do something that may not be consistent with local laws."

"Customer identification, mechanismsanti-money laundering, data management. When I discussed these issues with key Libra supporters, they did not express their intentions to put this all in writing,” — Bunga explained.

He also did not understand the business model of the future project:

“When you don’t understand how money is made, most likely they are made because you don’t want it.”

In addition to the above reasons, Banga singled out one more. Initially, he liked the idea of ​​Libra, as a means of distributing financial services, but then he found out that it would be tied to his own Facebook wallet.

“Initially it was an altruistic idea,however, it transformed into their own wallet. Then I expressed my dissatisfaction. If you want to distribute financial services, the authorities should pay you in this currency, you should receive it as a clear instrument and use it to buy rice and bicycles. If you receive Libra, which then needs to be sent to a Calibra wallet, and then converted into pounds and then bought rice with it, I don’t understand why this is necessary or how it should work,” — Mastercard CEO said.

Banga responded to the comments of critics who believe that payment companies are simply afraid of the spread of the blockchain as a direct and dangerous competitor:

“More than 30 thousand banks, 60 are cooperating with usmillions of outlets and billions of consumers from 200 countries. Moreover, in each state we adapt to local requirements, adjusting our system. Everyone, even the digital giants, admit that this is a very difficult job. ”

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