Facebook’s long-awaited Libra digital currency is to launch in January 2021, according to a new report out on Friday.

After global financial regulators scrutinised Libra for more than a year, it is set to be launched as a United States dollar-backed digital currency, says the Financial Times.                                                                                                                                                                                 

According to three sources involved in the project, additional fiat currencies will be added to the basket of assets backing Libra’s value at a later date.

Although scheduled for January, the exact date has not as yet been determined, and will depend on when the Libra Association is granted regulatory approval by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority, or FINMA, to operate as a payments service, Cointelegraph reports.

Although a FINMA spokesperson declined to comment on the proposed launch date next year, they stated: “In accordance with its usual practice, FINMA will neither provide public information on the status of the ongoing procedure nor speculate on when it may be complete.”

However, a representative involved with Novi, the digital wallet developer for Libra digital currencies, told the Financial Times that the wallet was “ready from a product perspective”, but initially would not be rolled out everywhere, with the firm prioritising “half a dozen high-volume remittance corridors” including the United States and a number of countries in Latin America.

Having been initiated in June last year, the Libra Association has faced immense regulatory scrutiny. The backet of currencies originally backing Libra was set to include a number of fiat currencies including the U.S. dollar, British pound, euro, Japanese yen and the Singapore dollar.

Earlier this week the Libra Association announced the appointment of Saumya Bhavsar as the new general counsel of Libra Networks, the entity in charge of the blockchain-based payment system.

Jeffrey Emmett, managing director of Libra Networks, described Bhavsar as: “A strategic leader with demonstrated ability and success in legal, regulatory and operational roles in one of the most highly-regulated industries.”