By WSJ City

David Marcus gathered a team inside Facebook's headquarters in May to toast a skunk works project a year in the making: a bitcoin-like payments system that the social-media giant figured would upend the global flow of money. Five months later, the libra project is on life support after high-profile backers dropped out of the network under pressure from lawmakers and regulators.

KEY FACTS

   -- Libra's bumpy rollout is a big setback to Facebook's efforts to reduce 
      its reliance on targeted advertising. 
 
   -- It is also a warning to technology giants that are expanding into 
      financial services. 
 
   -- Apple, Amazon and Google are each working on payments projects of their 
      own. 
 
   -- That could give them access to personal financial data at time when trust 
      in Silicon Valley is eroding. 
 
   -- To achieve its grand ambitions to mint a new currency, Facebook leaned on 
      a loosely knit alliance of companies. 
 
   -- But when libra came under regulatory fire, partners including Visa and 
      PayPal quickly jumped ship.

Why This Matters

Facebook shows no signs of abandoning libra; representatives from its remaining backers met on Monday in Switzerland to move the project forward. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has agreed to answer questions about it at a congressional hearing next week.

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 17, 2019 08:18 ET (12:18 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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