Facebook’s recent announcement over the launch of its global digital currency, Libra, raised a lot of apprehensions among the US and European banking sector. The financial industry is far more regulated that internet companies hence, the authorities demand detailed scrutiny of the entire block-chain project. The US Senate Banking Committee has called for a hearing of the matter on July 16. David Marcus, who oversees Facebook’s blockchain efforts, is expected to testify the matter.

According to a US committee spokesperson, the session would investigate the Libra project and see if it may violate any data privacy considerations. The committee wanted to know how the company would protect consumer information. The committee confirmed the news on Wednesday and mentioned that no witnesses have been announced yet.

Besides the US, European regulators also pushed back Facebook’s new digital currency, which is said to be launched by the first half of next year. French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said that only governments hold the right to issue sovereign currencies. He expressed his fear, given Facebook’s poor privacy record, Libra might hurt consumers or could be used for illegal activities. “We will demand guarantees that such transactions cannot be diverted, for example for financing terrorism,” he said on Europe-1 radio. Markus Ferber, German member of the European Parliament also called for regulatory scrutiny of the social network’s cryptocurrency project.

Ferber warned, “Facebook, with more than 2 billion users, could become a “shadow bank.”

The immediate reaction to Facebook’s announcement shows the amount of trust the policymakers around the globe have on the social networking giant and its new cryptocurrency project. The company received such a backlash due to its mishandling of user data and not preventing Russian meddling of the 2016 US presidential election. Its ignorant attitude towards these issues has also led to the imposition of penalties on Facebook.