On April 27, Bloomberg reported that more than three years after acquiring Twitter (which has been renamed

Musk

According to the timetable given by Musk last month, the banking and payment platform "X Money" built into X is expected to launch early public testing soon. Users who have participated in early testing said the service offers competitive benefits, including 3% cash back on eligible purchases and a 6% interest rate on cash deposits, which is about 15 times the U.S. national average.

Musk first rose to prominence in Silicon Valley with the payment application PayPal he co-founded. He sees payment services as a key part of creating so-called "super apps" that are already very mature in China's social products. Taking WeChat as an example, users can hail a taxi, book air tickets, and repay credit cards through the platform. As Musk told employees in February this year: "We want to do this: as long as you want, your entire life can be completed on the X application."

Is it too late?

But Musk is known for making bold promises and repeatedly missing self-imposed deadlines. In terms of payment services, he is facing regulatory troubles and delays: X Money has not yet obtained payment licenses in many states, including New York State. Local lawmakers have publicly questioned whether the billionaire should be entrusted with people's money.

At the same time, the customer reward mechanism also remains to be seen. Although X Money's potential 6% savings interest rate would be higher than competing consumer financial services such as SoFi Technology, Block and LendingClub, Musk's company did not clarify whether the interest rate would be a permanent standard or a short-term promotion. A spokesperson for X did not respond to a request for comment.

X will launch payment service

Richard Crone, founder of consulting firm Crone Consulting and a veteran observer of the payments industry, is skeptical of X Money’s prospects.

"He proposed this vision more than two years ago and said it would be realized within a year," Crone said. "Now, I'm afraid it's too late to help."

Harshita Rawat, senior research analyst at Bernstein Institutional Services, pointed out that although person-to-person payments are a popular feature that is used frequently every day, for the companies that provide these services, it is usually just a way to attract traffic at a loss. The real value lies in whether users can be persuaded to complete other banking services on the platform, including credit card purchases and loans.

Some payment industry veterans see a more fundamental problem: X still lacks the infrastructure to allow users to make purchases smoothly, which is a necessary prerequisite for any application that wants to get involved in real commercial transactions.

“It doesn’t have one-click purchasing functionality, which is needed otherwise the e-commerce business on its website would be outdated,” Crone said.