In a recently released memo, Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino disclosed the social media platform’s new branding to X, and spoke about the company’s upcoming strategic moves, into payments and banking.
As part of an all-encompassing rebrand, Elon Musk changed the iconic Twitter bird logo into an “X” on Monday, in line with his vision to turn the platform into an “everything app.”
“The Twitter name made sense when it was just 140 character messages going back and forth – like birds tweeting – but now you can post almost anything, including several hours of video. In the months to come, we will add comprehensive communications and the ability to conduct your entire financial world. The Twitter name does not make sense in that context, so we must bid adieu to the bird,” Musk explained in a prepared statement.
In the memo, Yaccarino also expressed that the company holds an inventor’s mindset and that it enjoys moving at the speed of light.
X’s Payments Vision
Musk acquired Twitter last year for $44 billion and it has long been believed that his intentions have always been to bring in banking features as another revenue stream. Musk has been adept in the payments space, helping lead PayPal in its early days. As part of the company’s payments vision, Musk revealed that he wanted to “offer fintech services such as peer-to-peer transactions, savings accounts and debit cards” onto the platform.
Last November, Twitter also registered to be a money transmitter with the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
More evidence of this goal has been reported, when Twitter began the process of applying for regulatory licenses in U.S. states earlier this year—a requirement that’s needed in order to provide payments services in the app.
“Consumers are inundated with banking apps, universal mobile payment apps, and now with embedded payments—payments within their favorite apps,”said Ben Danner, Senior Analyst of Credit and Commercial at Javelin Strategy & Research. “If X wishes to stand out above the rest and be the all-in-one social payment platform that it aspires to be, it will need to focus on developing its brand identity—and most important for a financial product—it will need to build trust with its users.”
“Asking consumers to use your social media service to write X’s (formerly tweet) is one thing but asking them to bank with you is something entirely different,” he said.