X (formerly Twitter) may introduce its in-house payments service soon, according to claims by an independent app researcher on social media. Since Elon Musk’s takeover, the microblogging platform has undergone a myriad of changes – from its logo, name and domain change to the removal of traditional verification methods and the introduction of an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Grok. Musk has highlighted his ambitions of making the platform into an “everything app”, offering services such as payments, shopping, and job hunting, outside its existing microblogging capabilities.
This latest leak suggests that the platform is taking another step towards realising Musk’s vision.
Payments on X
The payments feature was discovered by independent app researcher Nima Owji (@nima_owji), who has a track record of unearthing unreleased features on X. In a post on the microblogging platform, Owji revealed that X may allow users to access payment services via a Payments feature. A screenshot shared by the user suggests it may appear on the left-side navigation panel below the Bookmarks option.
BREAKING: X Payments is coming soon! pic.twitter.com/8JBIHjHOls
— Nima Owji (@nima_owji) August 5, 2024
In a conversation with TechCrunch, the researcher said that it contains references for options such as “transactions, balance, and transfer”.
This development builds upon a previous plan for X envisaged by Musk himself during a conversation with Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood in December last year. At the time, the X chief hinted at a possible launch timeline of the payment services being “mid-2024”. In a blog post dated January 9, X announced that launching peer-to-peer (P2P) payments would be one of the platform’s goals for 2024. As per the company, payment services would unlock new opportunities for commerce, increasing the user utility.
Contributing to this vision, X Payments, a subsidiary of the microblogging platform, has obtained money transmitter licenses in 33 states in the US, including recently granted ones in Alabama, the District of Columbia and California. If this move comes to fruition, it could make X a potential competitor of PayPal, the US-based payment services company established following the merger of Musk’s X.com and Confinity in 2000.