The US proposes to prevent high-tech companies from offering financial services

A proposal to prevent large technology companies from operating as financial institutions or by issuing digital currencies was circulated for debate to the Democratic majority who heads the House Financial Services Committee, according to a copy of the draft reviewed by Reuters.

As a sign of widening the review after Facebook's proposed Libra digital coin has elicited a widespread objection, the bill proposes a fine of $ 1 million a day for violating these rules .

Such a radical proposal would probably elicit opposition from Republican members of Parliament, eager for innovation, and would probably have trouble getting enough votes to be elected to the lower house.

Even if it had to pbad in full, it should still be adopted by the Senate, which would also be a tough struggle.

Nevertheless, the draft proposal sends a strong message to large, high-tech companies of growing interest in the financial services sector.

The draft bill, entitled "Financial Cost Limitation Act", describes a large technology company as a company offering primarily an online platform service with an annual business turnover of At least $ 25 billion.

"A large platform utility can not establish, maintain or exploit a digital badet intended to be widely used as a means of exchange, unit of account, store of value or any other similar function, as defined by the Board of Governors of: the system of the Federal Reserve, "he proposes.

Facebook, which would qualify to become such an entity, announced last month that it would launch its global cryptocurrency in 2020.

Facebook and 28 partners, including Mastercard, PayPal and Uber, would form the Libra Association to govern the new play. No bank is currently part of the group.

Last week, US President Donald Trump criticized Libra and other crypto-currencies and asked companies to apply for a banking charter and to submit to US and global regulation if they wished to "become a bank" .

His comments came after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell told lawmakers that Facebook's plan to create a digital currency called Libra could not go ahead even though it did not did not respond to concerns about privacy, money laundering, consumer protection and financial stability.