Elon Musk’s social media company X, formerly known as Twitter, launched its own bank account-like product where users can send money to one another.
The service, known as X Money, is not a new bank.
X Money is using technology and banking services provided by Cross River Bank, and branding that backbone as X Money.
It is common for new digital financial companies to use a traditional bank’s backbone to launch its services, as chartering a new bank is a timely and costly process.
Invite only
Currently, X Money is invite only, and users will receive a “X”-branded Visa debit card that is useable at any ATM.
Users of X will be able to send money to other X users in real-time, the company said.
Invitations are only available to X’s paying members presently.
In order to attract customers, X Money is offering a 6% yield on deposits and 3% cashback on eligible purchases.
In order to earn the 6% yield, a customer would need to deposit at least $1,000 into an account.
Customers would also have to be signed up for X’s premium services, which is at least $8 a month.
It would require at least a deposit of $1,600 in order to cover X’s premium services cost.
‘Everything app’
Musk has long talked about turning X into an “everything app” that would include financial services.
Musk has his origins in financial services, creating one of the first online banks under the brand X.com, which he co-founded in March 1999. The online financial services company later merged with the original creator of PayPal (Confinity) in March 2000.
It’s still early for X Money, but the company is entering into a competitive market, dominated by PayPal’s Venmo money transfer service and other peer-to-peer money transfer services like Zelle and Cash App.
