Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of social media giant Facebook, plans to tell United States Congress that Libra will not launch anyplace in the world until U.S. regulators O.K. it.

Libra won’t launch anyplace without Congressional approval

Per Zuckerberg’s prepared remarks released on Oct. 22 in advance of planned hearings before the U.S. House Financial Services Committee, the Facebook CEO wants to assuage regulative concerns over the launch of the coming stablecoin. He said:

“Facebook will not be part of launching the Libra defrayments system anyplace in the world until US regulators O.K..”

Note, however, that this diction is not the same as an assurance that Libra will not launch at all.

According to the remarks, Libra will be pegged mostly to U.S. dollars. Zuckerberg further leveraged China’s plans to release a project similar to Libra in the coming months, stressing that it could interpose with America’s business and technological leadership in the world.

Payments processing by Facebook and associated entities

Speaking about Facebook’s access to Calibra billfold users’ business data, Zuckerberg said that Calibra is a regulated subsidiary of Facebook, which means that there is clear separation between Facebook’s social data and Calibra’s business data.

“Calibra will not share customers’ account information or business data with Facebook, except to prevent fraud or criminal activity, when people affirmatively choose to share their data, or when we are lawfully tributary to do so,” Zuckerberg ensured, adding:

“Payments processed through Facebook’s accredited defrayments subsidiaries are subject to comprehensive anti-money laundering, counterterrorist financing, and sanctions monitoring that leverage both our machine-controlled systems and human review, and we report suspicious defrayments activity to applicable government consistent with our regulative obligations. We also have policies in place to prevent fraud.”

Zuckerberg further stressed that Libra is not created to replace sovereign currency, but to serve as an online defrayment system only.

Users’ private data protection

Worth noting is that Zuckerberg said that Facebook does not sell people’s personal information, and does not use and share it with third parties for lending or credit decisions.

“We use information about minutes that happen on our products to improve our services, including advertising. However, we do not use people’s defrayment account information itself for advertising purposes,” Zuckerberg said.

Last year, Facebook found itself in the crosshairs of regulative furor when Cambridge Analytica collected Facebook user data for roughly 50 million individuals without permission. Part of the information Facebook collects includes in person identifiable data. Moreover, the company gathers information about others in a user’s network.