X Payments unlikely to launch without New York
It seems possible that X has gone silent on X Payments because there is no timeline currently.
A global payments expert for tech consultancy Capco, Daniela Hawkins, told Ars that, as an outsider going just off a “gut check,” if X has withdrawn its application from New York—with “New York obviously being such a major metropolitan area… that would seem to be a barrier to entry into the payments market.”
X could launch X Payments without New York and other states, but Hawkins said users might be confused about where they can and cannot send money. Hawkins thinks it’s unlikely that Musk—who co-founded PayPal and has wanted to launch his own payments app since—would roll out X Payments “half-assed.”
Basically, if X pushed through with the launch, users could accept and send funds just like they can using any other payments app, but without licenses in all states, X users could only send money to people located in states where X has licenses. Hawkins said that inconsistency could deter popular use of the payments feature because “it’s too difficult for the consumer to understand.”
“If you roll it out with handcuffs on it, it’s gonna have a bumpy launch,” Hawkins said. “So why would you do that?”
Going that route, X seemingly risks users ditching X to complete payments on apps where every transaction reliably goes through, Hawkins suggested.
“They’re gonna be like, ‘Wait, I don’t know where this Etsy shop is located, I don’t care,” Hawkins said, noting, “that’s just a bad user experience.”
More regulations on payment apps coming
Last year, Hawkins told Ars that X faced an “uphill battle” launching X Payments, partly due to intensifying regulations on the financial services industry that are increasingly pulling payments apps into regulations typically focused on regulating traditional banking services.