Social Media Platform X has unveiled plans to introduce a peer-to-peer (P2P) payments feature. A recent blog post announcement shows that Social Media Platform X wants to do more things.
Elon Musk, who now owns X and co-founder of the renowned payments giant PayPal in 1999, has long expressed aspirations for Social Media Platform X to establish a presence in the financial services sector. It is not just to help users send money to friends (P2P transactions), but also plan to bring in savings accounts and debit cards in the future.
Taking concrete steps towards materializing these ambitions, the platform’s payments subsidiary, X Payments, has obtained money transmitter licenses in 14 states, including Arizona, Mississippi, Georgia, Wyoming and Arkansas.
Also, Social Media Platform X is teaming up with a couple of companies to make its money services better. In April 2023, it joined forces with eToro, a platform from Israel that lets users get into different money things like stocks and cryptocurrencies. Elon Musk subsequently confirmed via the platform in July that users could anticipate comprehensive communications functionalities and the ability to conduct various financial transactions in the near future.
While the exact timeline for the rollout of the P2P payments service remains undisclosed, the blog post did not elaborate on the prospective launch dates for ancillary financial services such as savings accounts or debit cards. These forthcoming services from Social Media Platform X will not only contend with established players in the North American financial market but also position the platform in competition with other major tech entities, including Apple, which ventured into savings accounts and buy now, pay later (BNPL) offerings in 2022 and 2023, respectively. All the changes happening show that Social Media Platform X is becoming more than just a regular social media site.