X Money: Musk's platform has credit card ambitions
X wants to become much more than just a social medium. New details are now emerging about its plans as a payment service provider.
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"You will be able to come to X and bring all your finances with you" – The launch of X Money is still pending, but X CEO Linda Yaccarino is already thinking out loud about a credit card service for tech billionaire Elon Musk's social platform. She first spoke about X as a payment service in January – and now preparations for linking physical credit cards have apparently also appeared in the X source code. Yaccarino further fueled the rumors in an interview.
According to this, X is also examining a function for physical credit or debit cards. This is intended to expand the possibilities of X Money, the payment service announced by X. A discovery by the provider AppSensa, which specializes in the analysis of app source codes, also supports this. As TechCrunch reports, several strings have recently appeared in the X source code that contain the words "physical_card_option" and are apparently intended for functions such as blocking or activating the credit card and more.
Versatile functions planned
Yaccarino, meanwhile, spoke in a Financial Times interview about what else X Money will offer. "Whether I can pay you for the pizza we ate last night, or make an investment or close a deal," she enthused.
In January, X found its first partner for financial services in the credit card company Visa. With the help of Visa Direct, secure payments between so-called X-Money accounts and bookings to your own bank account will be possible, as X boss Linda Yaccarino announced at the time.
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Payment service initially planned for the USA
On Tuesday, Yaccarino said that X Money would initially be launched in the USA before being rolled out in other countries. The service will allow users to buy merchandise products, save credit or tip other X users on the platform. The latter is not entirely new: Twitter (now X) already introduced a tipping function in 2021, which also enabled payments in Bitcoin worldwide, back then under former CEO and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey.
X Money also brings more regulations
According to Yaccarino, a whole new ecosystem is to be created – of a commercial and financial nature. However, X would then also have to comply with all kinds of regulations such as licensing and anti-money laundering issues. Twitter submitted its first applications to US authorities for payment services almost exactly two years ago, at the beginning of 2023.
According to the social network, it now has licenses for money transfers in over 40 states in the USA. It is still unclear when X Money will be launched. Yaccarino gave the latest status in January, stating that it should be ready this year.
Meanwhile, X is also trying to become the "everything app" in other ways. X has built a successful sports portal around the American football league NFL, which is intended to be a blueprint for other sports worldwide. The app now also enables video and audio calls.
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