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* Libra Association selects board at first meeting
* Follows Priceline owner jumping ship
* Comes days after Visa, Mastercard, and others abandon
project
(Adds Facebook comment)
By Tom Wilson and Katie Paul
LONDON/SAN FRANCISCO, Oct 14 (Reuters) - Backers of Facebook
Inc's Libra cryptocurrency project pledged to forge ahead
after selecting a five-member board on Monday, shrugging off the
latest member defection by online travel company Booking Holding
earlier in the day.
"It is a correction; it's not a setback," said Dante
Disparte, head of policy and communications for the Libra
Association, whose 21 remaining members held their inaugural
meeting in Geneva.
The owner of Priceline, Kayak and Booking.com on Monday
confirmed that it had pulled out of the group, which is trying
to bring digital coins into mainstream commerce.
Libra lost its last global payments backers on Friday, when
Mastercard Inc and Visa Inc abandoned the
Geneva-based Libra Association. EBay Inc, fintech
startup Stripe and payments company Mercado Pago also pulled the
plug.
The exodus followed warnings from politicians and
regulators, from the United States to Europe, that Libra risked
upsetting global financial stability, undermining users' privacy
and facilitating money laundering.
The latest withdrawals followed the departure of PayPal
Holdings Inc from the Libra Association earlier this
month. It leaves Facebook without the backing of any major
payments firms for the project, due to launch by June 2020.
Disparte acknowledged that the digital currency's regulatory
issues could push back its launch date.
At the meeting in Geneva, members agreed interim articles of
association laying out how the organisation will be governed, as
required by Swiss law, according to a fact sheet provided by the
Libra Association.
Most decisions will require a majority vote of the group's
governing council, although changes to membership or management
of the reserve would require a two-third supermajority.
The group elected five people to serve on the board,
including Facebook's David Marcus as well as representatives
from PayU, venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, blockchain company
Xapo Holdings Limited and non-profit Kiva Microfunds.
The association's other prominent remaining members include
Vodafone Group Plc and ride-hailing firms Uber
Technologies Inc and Lyft Inc.
Its only payments firm remaining is Netherlands-based PayU,
which according to its website does not operate in the United
States, Canada or large swaths of Africa and the Middle East.
The departure of major financial firms means Facebook can no
longer count on a global player to help consumers turn their
currency into Libra and facilitate transactions. This presents a
new stumbling block for Libra's efforts to convince regulators
and politicians about the coin's safety.
France pledged last month to block Libra from operating in
Europe, while the Bank of England laid out high hurdles it must
meet before its launch. U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome
Powell has also suggested the project could not advance before
concerns were assuaged.
Libra, announced as Facebook expands into e-commerce, will
be backed by a reserve of real-world assets, including bank
deposits and short-term government securities, and overseen by
the Libra Association.
The structure is intended to foster trust and stabilise the
price volatility that plagues cryptocurrencies and renders them
impractical for commerce and payments.
(Reporting by Tom Wilson and Katie Paul; additional reporting
by Ankit Ajmera in Bangalore and Peter Henderson in San
Francisco; Editing by Pravin Char and Lisa Shumaker)
