In the latest episode of Throwing It All Against the Wall and Seeing What Works, Elon Musk’s Twitter is reportedly working to become a payment platform.
According to the Financial Times(opens in new window), citing people familiar with the company’s plans, Musk wants Twitter users to not only be able to buy things on Twitter, but also send money to each other. Despite Musk’s self-proclaimed love of cryptocurrencies, the system is primarily based on fiat payments, although crypto functionality may be added at a later stage.
Twitter is already working on a system where users can give awards to other creators. But to use these new features, the company has to meet a ton of regulatory checks, and Twitter is already registered as a payment processor with the U.S. Treasury Department, according to the FT.The company has also started filing for the required regulatory licenses in the US
Twitter changed its font, and it may have a very good reason
This takes time. Twitter hopes to complete its U.S. licensing within a year, after which the company could seek the regulatory approvals it needs to expand internationally, according to the report. highly sexual.
At the helm of this new effort is Esther Crawford, Twitter’s Director of Product Management, who seems to be well suited to Elon Musk’s “very hardcore” work environment. Crawford, who the FT describes as Musk’s “rapidly growing lieutenant,” shared a photo of himself. in a sleeping bag(opens in new window) The office floor shortly after Musk took over Twitter. Crawford has been appointed head of her Twitter Payments and leads a small team currently working on creating a vault to store and protect user data collected by the system.
Given the cybersecurity and data breach incidents that have plagued Twitter in recent years, this will be a very important part of Twitter Payments. As the FT points out, Musk has laid off more than half of the company’s workforce since he took office, and Twitter compliance his staff may be inadequate to handle a project of this magnitude. not. There is also the issue of forcing users to provide their real identities and more personal data when they sign up for the platform.
The payments project is part of an effort to significantly increase Twitter’s revenue, which Musk revealed in a leaked pitch deck in May 2022. The company has lost some advertising revenue since Mr. Musk took office in October 2022, so his ambitious plans will certainly be hard to come by. simply. In payments, Twitter has to contend with strong competitors such as PayPal and Apple Pay. However, Musk is not without experience in this area. One of his first projects was Online Bank X.com.(opens in new window)which later became part of PayPal.
