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Facebook’s Calibra logo bears a striking resemblance to this bank’s

Facebook’s Calibra logo bears a striking resemblance to this bank’s

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‘This is what happens when you only have 1 crayon left’

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Image: Current

Plenty of people aren’t happy about the idea of Facebook getting into financial services, but startup bank Current has a slightly different gripe — the logo used by Facebook’s Calibra subsidiary, consisting of a simple tilde mark within a circle, bears a remarkable similarity to its own. The bank has posted a comparison of the two logos with the message, “This is what happens when you only have 1 crayon left.”

Current is a startup bank that first launched in 2017 with an app-controlled debit card designed for kids, and at the end of last year it launched a regular checking account. As well as being able to manage your account using an app, Current also advertises that it can be used as a way for users to pay their friends, not unlike the functionality that will be offered by Calibra when it launches next year.

Unlike some cases of plagiarism (cough, Xiaomi, cough), it’s entirely possible this was a complete accident. Neither tildes nor circles are uncommon shapes, and it makes sense for Calibra to use a tilde in its logo given that the cryptocurrency it’s designed to use, Libra, uses three tildes stacked vertically (≋) as its currency symbol. Nevertheless, the resemblance is striking, and since both companies provide financial services there’s potential for confusion.