X CEO Elon Musk, has announced that the launch of payment services on the social networking platform, is expected to occur around mid-2024.
Speaking on X Spaces, hosted by Cathie Wood, founder and CEO of Arkinvest, Musk said he expects the payment services to be fully launched sometime in the middle of next year.
He further noted that the company’s plan to roll-out payment services, hinges on approving pending money transmitter license applications, which often involves several rigorous processes.
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Musk said he would have launched payments on the social platform earlier, but was weighed down by bureaucratic processes. He added that he isn’t perturbed about the company transmitter license applications being rejected, acknowledging that X had been a bit late in submitting all necessary documents.
It is worth noting that in the platform’s bid to launch deeper into payments services, X snapped up money transmitter licenses in a number of U.S. states last week.
On December 15, X took a step closer to offering payment features after receiving a money-transmitter license from a 13th U.S. state. The new payment licences from the states of Arizona, Georgia, Mayland, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire and Rhode Island are among the first steps to be taken in a bid to launch its own payment features and thus to realise Musk vision to emulate his first payment company Paypal.
X strategic state-by-state expansion into payments is crucial, as full nationwide coverage is necessary for the platform to offer comprehensive payment services across the US. Also, it grants X the ability to facilitate money transfers and paves the way for the company to allow users to send money to one another, similar to PayPal’s Venmo.
Since acquiring X (formerly Twitter) in October 2022, Musk said he envisions transforming the social networking platform into an everything app, which is similar to popular Chinese app WeChat.
Musk had told X employees that users should be able to conduct their entire financial life on the platform, and that he expects new features to be rolled out by the end of next year.
Meanwhile, Musk’s vision goes beyond enabling payments within the US, after X CEO Linda Yaccarino confirmed in a blog post that while X has already secured money-transmitter licenses in several states, X is moving toward launching a global payment system.
If X launches payments by the middle of 2024 as proposed, it will officially have what experts said are the key ingredients of an everything app.