Facebook plans to launch its own cryptocurrency next year

FACEBOOK is edging closer to launching its own cryptocurrency, known as Globalcoin, next year in what could be the most significant product released by the company in years.

The move would mean Facebook’s 2.4bn users could change foreign currencies into digital coins, allowing them to make payments anywhere in the world, even if they do not have a bank account.

Payments could be made within Facebook-owned apps, such as Whatsapp and Instagram, and also in shops via “digital wallets”.

Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, has met with Face- book founder Mark Zuckerberg to discuss the launch, the BBC reported.

“Payments is one of the areas where we have an opportunity to make it a lot easier,” Mr Zuckerberg said at his company’s developer conference in April.

“It should be as easy to send money to someone as it is to send a photo.” Testing will reportedly begin at the end of this year ahead of a slated rollout to about a dozen countries in the first three months of 2020.

The social network has long been rumoured to be exploring a digital currency after hiring former Paypal president David Marcus in 2014 to run its Messenger app. Many believe Facebook is attempting to copy the socalled “superapp” Wechat in China, which integrates a variety of services to organise almost every aspect of a user’s life.

The dominance of Wechat among Chinese mobile phone applications has previously been described as “inspiring” by Mr Marcus.

Globalcoin is likely to be pegged to the value of traditional currencies, such as the dollar and the euro, to avoid the wild price swings that Bitcoin has experienced.

This is not the first time that Facebook has launched a cryptocurrency.

In 2009, the company launched Facebook Credits, a virtual currency which users could spend on apps that ran on Facebook’s platform. The feature was scrapped in 2012.

Mr Zuckerberg has said that adding e-commerce is the logical evolution of the company’s advertising-based business model. Such a step is likely to invite more intense regulatory scrutiny at a time when Facebook is already under a cloud for abuses of privacy and the spread of fake news.

A Facebook spokesman declined to comment. A spokesman for the business previously said: “Facebook is exploring ways to leverage the power of blockchain technology.”