The founder of GRH Consulting and the former director of the financial crimes enforcement network (FinCEN), Robert Werner has joined Facebook’s Libra association, as its general counsel.

"I am grateful for the opportunity to join the Libra Association, as we work to transform the global payments landscape to empower billions of people,” said Werner in a Libra Association press release. “I have dedicated my career to combating financial crime and helping complex organizations achieve regulatory compliance, both in government and in the private sector. I look forward to meaningfully contributing to such an impactful project.”

Werner, the founder and CEO of GRH consulting, who has also served as the director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) for 10 months in 2006. During his career tenure, he was the senior counselor to the Under Secretary of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence from 2009 to 2010, as well as serving as the global co-head of financial crime at Goldman Sachs and the global head of financial crime compliance at HSBC, among holding other leadership positions in the finance industry.

In the mid-April, the Libra Association formally initiated the payment system licensing process with FINMA, an important milestone as the Libra Association moves to a more operational phase of the project. In addition to initiating the payment system licensing process, the Libra Association released an updated white paper. The Libra Association membership is comprised of geographically distributed and diverse businesses and non-profit organizations working to create a blockchain-based payment system supporting financial inclusion and responsible financial services innovation.

Ever since the sovereign nations grilling Facebook’s Libra, many central banks appear to be optimistically designing & developing the native cryptocurrencies, and Year-2020 can witness some experimentations in this perspective.

On this backdrop, Facebook’s Libra is back to the drawing board now with the new appointment of top brass FinCEN employee. The Libra Association has recently designated and authorized the establishment of a technical steering committee that is exclusively dedicated to administer and for implementation of the technical infrastructure of the Libra project. In addition, the three new members have joined Facebook’s the Libra Association.