X says its payments service will finally launch this year

X is one step closer to finally launching its payments platform. According to X CEO Linda Yaccarino, the X Money service will debut “later this year” with Visa announced as its first partner.

In her announcement, Yaccarino says the service will support “secure + instant funding to your X Wallet via Visa Direct,” allowing users to make P2P payments and instantly transfer money to their connected bank account. (It sounds a bit like Venmo.) The X Money profile Yaccarino tagged in her announcement says the service is “launching in 2025.”

The service has been approved for money transmitter licenses in 41 US states, according to the X Payments website — however, that’s the only information currently listed on the site. As of June 2024, Bloomberg reported that X Payments is banking with Citibank and has agreements in place with payment providers like Stripe and Adyen.

Introducing a payments system has been a major component of X owner Elon Musk’s goal to transform the platform into an “everything app.” Shortly after purchasing X (then Twitter) in October 2022, he described plans to turn it into a bank that would offer high-yield money market accounts, debit cards, checks, and loan services. Musk previously said “It would blow my mind” if X hadn’t rolled out financial services by the end of 2024.

Yaccarino says the Visa partnership is the “first of many big announcements” that will be made about X Money this year. It’s unclear if the service will be directly connected in some way to X’s creator revenue sharing program. Musk said that X is “barely breaking even” in an email to employees this month, and the company is currently scrambling to bring in revenue as banks reportedly prepare to sell off some of the $13 billion debt the Chief Twit borrowed to buy the platform.