Group items tagged

Facebook's Novi digital wallet app is being rolled out a small pilot in the United States and Guatemala. With it, people can send and receive money instantly, securely, and with no fees. It will use the Pax Dollar (USDP) stablecoin through partnerships with Paxos and Coinbase. A small cohort of users in both countries will be able to download the Novi app on iPhone or Android devices, sign up with valid government-issued ID, and add money to their accounts with a debit card. According to CEO David Marcus, USDP was chosen because it's been operating successfully for over three years and has important regulatory and consumer protection attributes. He also made it clear that Novi's support for the larger-scale Diem project hasn't changed and they intend to launch Novi with Diem once it receives regulatory approval and goes live. https://www.novi.com/file/pilot-version-of-novi-now-available

"The remainder of the Diem [which started out as Libra] Facebook [now Meta] backed cryptocurrency project is officially shutting down. Novi -- a money-transfer service using the company's own cryptocurrency digital wallet -- will end on September 1.  Both the Novi app and Novi on WhatsApp will no longer be available. Starting July 21, users will no longer be able to add money to their accounts, and users are advised to withdraw their balance as soon as possible. Users won't be able to access their transaction history or other data after the pilot ends."

Facebook's Novi launched its retail payment app yesterday (October 19) going with Paxos' USDP stablecoin as its transactional currency while it awaits regulatory approval for its own Diem stablecoin. However, almost immediately, US Senate Democrats addressed a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg questioning the company's credibility with crypto, and calling for the immediate discontinuance of the Novi pilot and a commitment not to bring Diem to market. Diem replied by clarifying that Diem is an independent organization with Facebook's Novi being just one of more than two dozen members of the Diem Association, so that Novi's pilot with Paxos is unrelated to Diem. The response went on to say that "When Diem comes to market [Diem] will do so having reflected the feedback of regulators from around the world and with confidence that Diem's payment system is secure, will protect consumers, and will combat financial crime."

Facebook is forming Facebook Financial (called F2 internally) to oversee the all of the payment services Facebook has announced in the past year, including Novi and WhatsApp payments. Novi oversees the digital wallet for Facebook's proposed Libra digital currency. Novi head David Marcus will be in charge of the initiative, and former PayPal executive Stephane Kasriel is being brought in to head Facebook Pay and serve as payments vice president of Facebook Financial. Facebook Pay, launched in November 2019, can be used for P2P payments on Messenger and purchases from select Pages and businesses on Facebook Marketplace. Facebook has plans to add it to Instagram and WhatsApp in the future.

Meta's WhatsApp has launched a pilot that lets a "limited number" of people in the US send and receive money instantly from within a chat using Pax Dollars (USDP) stablecoins. The feature is powered by Meta's Novi, digital wallet launched as a pilot six weeks ago. There are no fees for sending or receiving money, no limits on how often payments can be sent, and no fees to keep a balance in a Novi account or to withdraw it to a linked bank account.

Facebook's digital wallet, Novi, could abandon the Diem stablecoin in favor of fiat money if regulators do not change their tune, says David Marcus, head of Facebook Financial and Novi. The current iteration of the project involves the issue of a single stablecoin pegged to the US dollar, versus the original plan to issue a series of stablecoins backed by individual traditional currencies, as well as a token based on the currency-pegged stablecoins. Marcus claims that US authorities' "hostility" to Facebook's move into payments, is "profoundly un-American" and that the firm deserve a "fair shot" while also pointing out that it is already well embedded in the sector.

Libra's wallet provider Calibra has now been rebranded to Novi - a portmanteau of the Latin root words, "novus" meaning new and "via" meaning way. The first wallet product from the firm is intended to hold Libra's various digital currencies, once the Facebook-led initiative goes live.

Facebook-led digital currency Libra is reportedly preparing to launch as early as January, in a single coin backed one-for-one by the dollar. The other currencies and the composite would be rolled out at a later point. Libra's exact launch date would depend on when the project receives approval to operate as a payments service from the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority. The Novi wallet was ready from a product perspective, but would not be rolled out everywhere initially, with the company prioritising half a dozen high-volume remittance corridors including the United States and some Latin American countries. Novi needed its own licence in each U.S. state, sand is till waiting on up to 10, including a New York Bitlicense.

"What all of this means is that, as I have repeatedly pointed out (eg, here in Forbes), a digital currency that is to function at population scale in both developed and developing countries must be able to work off-line. If it cannot work off-line then it is not a viable cash replacement and not a viable strategic platform for new financial services. Suppose that Facebook's Novi wallet becomes as important to the economies of countries around the world as banking networks are today? In that environment a six hour outage could be completely catastrophic and inflict serious damage to national economies because payments are the only part of the financial infrastructure that are actually critical."

The National Bank of Ukraine presented the results of testing its e-hryvnia CBDC project, concluding so far that it raises significant concerns. It is particularly concerned about the effect on financial stability as well as the possible threat to the traditional banking system.