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Danielle Goldfarb, Riwi’s head of global research, said North American consumers are less eager to adopt tech firm-created currencies because they already have access to well-established financial and banking systems. “We experience fewer frictions in Canada and the U.S. … than people in emerging markets,” she said, citing “long-established legacy payment mechanisms like credit and debit cards.”

However, she said, “the test of the Libra project is really whether there’s a demand in emerging markets.”

Since it was announced in June, Libra has been plagued by controversy. It will be governed by the Libra Association, a Geneva-based non-profit, which was supposed to include 28 founding members. Last week, however, all the major payment firms involved — including Visa, Mastercard and PayPal — dropped out following pressure from members of the Senate and the U.S. Treasury Department’s inquiries about the companies’ respective anti-money-laundering practices.

As Libra Association members quit, “increasingly it looks like Facebook is still in charge, and it always was,” Goldfarb said.

The association still aims to grow to about 100 members before Libra launches. The sole current Canadian participant is the Creative Destruction Lab, a startup incubator headquartered at Rotman and one of four founding “social impact partners.”

Methodology Riwi surveyed 5,068 respondents in India (3,040), Nigeria (1,200) and the U.S. (828). Half the respondents answered questions about whether they would pay for products and services with a Facebook-issued currency, and the other half about a currency from a technology company in general. The survey did not ask specifically about Libra because the “name does not yet enjoy widespread awareness,” the report states. Participants were also asked which of four concerns about using such coins was their highest priority: data privacy; the money failing to keep its value; a dislike of Facebook or technology companies; and the idea that only governments should issue money.

There is a particular opportunity for digital currencies in emerging markets, where economic and political volatility can make new financial technologies like Libra more attractive to consumers, said Goldfarb, who co-authored the paper with Andreas Park, an associate professor at the University of Toronto Mississauga’s management department. In India, mobile-wallet app downloads and transactions soared after the government suddenly removed high-value banknotes from circulation in November 2016, although some users have since gone back to cash.