In the current digital era, the appearance of cryptocurrency comes as no suprise. It is a virtual currency attracting a lot of attention worldwide. The definition of cryptocurrency from the Merriam – Webster dictionary is as follows: “any form of currency that only exists digitally, that usually has no central issuing or regulating authority but instead uses a decentralized system to record transactions and manage the issuance of new units and that relies on cryptography to prevent counterfeiting and fraudu-lent transactions” [1]. This kind of money offers many upgrades compared to traditional one with advantage of valuation, efficiency and private transactions, which makes it become the most prospective product for current investors. However, besides these advantages, it also brings drawbacks relating to financial results and other risks. [2] At showed in Facebook posters five forces analysis 2019, Facebook is an American social media and social networking company with its headquarters in Menlo park, California, United States. It was founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg and co-founders Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes [3]. According to the Technology report in the Guardian 2019, as one of the most pervasive and ubiquitous companies around the world, Facebook is planning to launch its own cryptocurrency in early 2020. The currency called dubbed GlobalCoin - Libra enables customers to buy things on the internet or transfer money without needing a bank account. [4] The essay aims to analysis this proposed strategy that creates a new opportunity for responsible financial services innovation and on the basis of this analysis, we identify the barriers that Facebook have to deal with.

   Although each film can make efforts to predict how its products or services will resonate with customers, there will be factors outside of control influencing its business operates, and Facebook Inc. is no exception. One method for discovering and quantifying those factors is the PEST analysis created by Harvard professor Francis Aguilar in 1967. PEST is an acronym for political, economic, social and technological. It is a way of understanding how external forces impact business.[5]

           As showed in Facebook PESTEL analysis 2018, there are six main external factors that significantly affect the condition of the firm’s remote or macro-environment in which Facebook operates. [6]

1. Political factor

In this element of PESTEL analysis, the effects of government are determined to shape the development of business. These factors are devided into two groups: first group is considered as opportunities (politicial stability in developed countries and Popular governmental support for globalization), while second group are determine as threat (Political barriers in the Chinese market and Political action on online data).One of the biggest political factors influencing Facebook is its services were banned operating in China on political grounds in 2009. [7]

2. Economic Factors

It it clear from the PESTEL analysis that the factor have the positive influence on Facebook Inc’s bussiness growth. Increasing stability, rapid economic growth of developing and developed countries and increasing disposable incomes all offer opportunities for expansion of access to Facebook’s social network. Considering these factors, we can note that the high economic growth in the US gives Facebook an opportunity to grow. The 4.1% annual economic growth in the US has enabled decrease in unemployment rates that dropped from 4.87% in 2016 to 4.44% in 2017 according to Statista (2018a). With the low unemployment rate, consumer spending increased at an annual rate of 4% (Rushe 2018). [8,9]

3. Social/Sociocultural Factors

In the context of the PESTEL/PESTLE analysis, due to higher living standard, people pay more attention on high quality service. This contribute to the innovation of additional services that Facebook Inc. use to enhance profit from retail sales from its social networking website and related mobile apps. In 2017, Facebook Live was the most used social media platform for creating live videos with more than 91% users. Other social media platforms like Instagram, Periscope and YouTube made up 29%, 21% and 14% users respectively (Patel 2018) [10]. The company can enhance its corporate social responsibility programs to satisfy the corresponding expectations of users.

4. Technological Factors

Considering that Facebook Inc. is a business founded on online technologies, these elements allow to improve user experience by various ways, such as mobile devices or 5G network. However, more online other social networks that attempt to attract users pose the threat of increasing competition. It means Facebook can provide better video, text and voice communications with near zero latency throughout all its other social media and messaging platforms like WhatsApp and Instagram (Khosravi 2018) [11]

5. Ecological/Environmental Factors

This factor offers many advantages as well as drawbacks to Facebook Inc. Firstly, many latest news and issues related to natural environment draw attraction of a large number of users. Moreover, according to the Guardian 2019 the company can implement better waste disposal policies and standards for its corporate operations. This can address the increasing complexity of waste disposal standards, especially in Western countries.[12] Besides these advantages, Facebook also have to face the threat of climate change , which could prompt the business to transfer its servers and other equipment to another location in the future.

6. Legal Factors

 Improving patent laws worldwide and increasing regulatory support for free Wi-Fi considered as beneficial factors, which help Facebook Inc. to innovate and introduce new products. However, many of the legal factors affecting Facebook arise from its use of user data and issues of privacy. According to a Mintel 2018 report, 63% of people are concerned about the safety of their social media information. [13]