Facebook’s new fintech firm

It was revealed last week that Facebook set up and registered a new financial technology company named Libra Networks in Geneva, Switzerland. According to records, the fintech firm will focus on “investing, payments, financing, identity management, analytics, big data, blockchain, and other technologies.” Given that Facebook has recently been under scrutiny for its questionable practices involving consumers’ personal data, some suggested that the company should build its cryptocurrency infrastructure on a public, open blockchain. In fact, patent data shows that Facebook‘s last filing in the Cryptocurrency sector was in 2016, and that the company lacks blockchain security-related patents. Furthermore, the US Senate Banking Committee had also sent an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg earlier this month asking how a new cryptocurrency-based payments system related to legal, regulatory, privacy, and consumer protection concerns.