US Senators Sent Letters to Executives of Stripe, Mastercard, Visa – Libra | Hacker News Reader

US Senators Sent Letters to Executives of Stripe, Mastercard, Visa – Libra

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15 pointsmomentmaker6 comments

The only issue I have with the letter is the spurious inclusion of CP. It has little to do with the substance of the matter. But overall this is a pretty fair letter. As a fact, FB has shifted the focus from themselves as a platform provider onto potential association members. That literally means that regulators, have no choice but to focus their efforts on those member companies. Sure you can take it as a threat, but it really is just a very sobering fact.

I think it also shows how little faith these companies have in this tech that they have all just bowed out at the fist sign of (very obviously coming) government push back. If they thought this was really fleshed out and had the kind of earning potential that FB has implied they'd all be doing their best to play both sides for as long as possible.

You don't see a problem with them threatening even their non-Libra business lines with "additional scrutiny"? The letter directly threatens malicious investigation.

>The letter directly threatens malicious investigation

Interesting word choice there. I saw nothing malicious in the statement that moving forward would result in elevated regulatory pressure. That is a regulator's job. If Libra took off, but could not be monitored through the existing regulatory infrastructure, then those organizations must do more to make up the lost ground to meet their mandate.

So malice doesn't really come into it.

Regulators should not pressure a companies unrelated business lines to effect change elsewhere. If the company is doing something illegal then target that specific activity.

The implication in the letter is "if you go forward with Libra, then scrutiny will increase." Which again, makes sense, because previous safeguards (KYC and AML) would have to be updated to reflect the realities represented by financial transactions in Libra.

The financial system is regulated through high barrier entrance controls, and various levels of traffic pattern analysis through AML laws. Libra threatens to blow a hole in that for some period of time while the tools and processes are updated. Therefore... More scrutiny.

It isn't a conspiracy. It's just how things work in strictly regulated industries. Although usually, it isn't such a big deal that Congresspeople get directly involved through constituent outcry, and it is left to the Executive agencies to do the back and forth with the industry to ensure things go without a hitch.

Yeah I don't think that line of reasoning follows. More scrutiny, is more scrutiny. Especially when you're talking about financial transactions. If I'm looking for A and notice that thing B is illegal I'm not going to not investigate it simply because it wasn't my mandate. That's literally how the US Government eventually got Al Capone. Every agency in the country looking at him and he goes away for Tax Evasion.

It also should be obvious but something like Libra could easily affect other lines of business for a company and so those other things that don't necessarily deal directly with Libra would require monitoring as well. It's not a threat, it's just a fact of what (imo very warranted) enhanced regulatory attention risks.

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