Facebook says Libra is intended to provide financial services to the billions of people around the world who don't have access to traditional banking.

It works like this:

Libra can be kept in a digital wallet available in Messenger and WhatsApp, as well as a stand-alone app.

It'll run on Facebook's own version of blockchain technology, a type of encrypted network used by cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.

And unlike volatile Bitcoin, the value of Libra will be backed by a financial reserve for added stability.

Facebook's newly set-up subsidiary, Calibra, will handle the transactions.

And in a bid to reassure users' concern about privacy, Facebook says financial information will be handled separately from social network data.

And we heard people loud and clear:

They don't want their financial data commingled with their social data, and they certainly don't want their financial data being used for ad targeting and all these things, and so that's what we're doing.

Basically, Facebook Inc. will not have access to financial data that you'll have inside of Calibra.

Facebook won't have full control of Libra.

It's just one member of the Libra Association, made up of 28 founding partners, which include Visa, PayPal, and Spotify, among others.

Libra is slated to officially launch in early 2020.