 On their website, the not-for-profit research and campaigning organisation based in London, Positive Money, declares we campaign for a money and banking system that enables a fair, sustainable and democratic economy. David Clark is the head of research and he joined me earlier and explained how this new currency is going to work. It's a group of tech companies including Facebook but also the likes of Visa and Mastercard are setting up a digital currency so it's going to be a currency that's in competition with sovereign currencies like the dollar and the pound. They see a lot of potential in digital currencies. They talk about empowering billions of people around the world and helping to tackle financial inclusion and they're absolutely right that there is a huge opportunity for positive innovation with digital currencies but I think there's reason to be cautious about whether the answer is really having one that's governed by a self-selecting group of unaccountable corporations. Mark Carney's response to the new currency has been a lot more positive than his US counterparts, hasn't it? It has. So he has announced that the Bank of England is going to look into opening up access to reserve accounts at the Bank of England for tech companies like Facebook. You can see- Which is a big step actually, isn't it? It really is. You can see the attraction for companies like Facebook. Being able to hold money in an account at the Bank of England has really massive advantages. You're not reliant on another bank so you don't have to pay any charges. The Bank of England can never default because it's able to create money so your money is completely safe and there's no need for deposit insurance. The Bank of England actually pays you interest at a higher rate than most current accounts just for the privilege of looking after your money. So people listening to that might think, how do I apply to open one of these accounts? But the bad news is that at the moment the Bank of England only gives access to commercial banks. Now it's thinking about opening up access to tech firms like Facebook. But it does beg the question if big banks and now tech companies get access to Bank of England accounts, why don't the rest of us? Yeah, that's a much wider question which I suppose is a question about the future of the banking system, isn't it? It really is. This is Facebook making a major play to become a competitor to the big banks in offering payment services. At the moment, particularly with the decline of physical cash, we're all becoming more and more reliant on just a handful of big banks to manage our money and make payments. At the moment, that's really because they've got this privileged position through having accounts at the Bank of England and now there's this prospect of tech companies like Facebook entering the market. But it's not necessarily good news that we're going from one, a handful of massive corporations to another. And we really think that there's a role for governments and central banks to enter the market with public digital currencies that are actually owned and operated in the public interest. Is that happening? Is that likely to happen, do you think? So Sweden is really at an advanced stage of looking at this. They're running a pilot this year with a view to possibly introducing a general use. It's called a central bank digital currency as early as 2021. At the moment, the Bank of England is also looking into the idea, but Mark Carney has said that he thinks there's too many risks associated for the time being. But I think there's a real risk that will get left behind and also that private companies like Facebook are going to enter the market if the Bank of England doesn't get it sat together soon. Why is there such a difference in position between Mark Carney and his American counterparts? What are they so worried about that they want a moratorium on this new cryptocurrency? An array of different concerns that people have about Facebook entering the digital currency space. Obviously, Facebook doesn't have a very good track record on issues like privacy. Just think about what Cambridge Analytica was able to do, just having access to a handful of people, the pages that people had liked on Facebook, and think about what Facebook and Visa and Mastercard are able to do with access to the history of our entire financial lives. Facebook hasn't really had a very good track record of dealing with people uploading hateful content or spreading misinformation. Mark Zuckerberg was asked to appear before a committee made up of representatives from five parliaments, and he didn't even show up. So you really have to question whether governments will be able to rein in Facebook if this currency takes off. Whose position do you think is the more realistic one, the one of the US or the one of the UK? So we've heard from, for example, the chair of the House Financial Services Committee that she wanted Facebook to, as you said, put a moratorium on these proposals, press the pause button until Congress had had a chance to look at it. Mark Carney has said that he wants to have an open mind about these proposals and is obviously in discussions with Facebook about how the Bank of England should react. I think that it's absolutely right to be cautious that there is a possibility that, given Facebook's huge network with two billion people, that this currency could potentially take off. And what you don't want is to have governments and regulators trying to play catch up, trying to regulate something that's already being used by billions of people in the same way that they've been slow to on the uptake of actually regulating social media networks like Facebook on issues such as fake news or the spread of misinformation. But there's no doubt, David, is that we're looking over the next five to 10 years at a huge shake up in the in the banking system with technology changing the way that we're going to bank and probably who we bank with. The money and payments system is absolutely in flux. And there are huge questions about what the future is going to hold. But we've really got to ask, do we want to see further control over our money and payment systems to big private companies, whether it be the big banks, card companies or now tech firms like Facebook, or do we want the system to be run in the public interest by democratically elected governments accountable to parliament and central banks? And we prefer the latter. And that's why we think there's a good case for a central bank digital currency operated and run in the public interest. You prefer the latter. Do you think that will happen? I think it's inevitable, actually, that central banks and regulators will see the risks of ceding further control to private companies, which they're unable to rein in. You know, for example, if people start using Facebook's currency rather than sterling, then it's going to be more and more difficult for central banks to control monetary policy or protect financial stability. So it's actually going to be in their interest in the long term to have a public alternative that they're using so they can show that the public interest is protected. David Clarke there from Positive Money on the Libra currency, which could be something we may all be using in a few years' time.