Twitter now wants to become a payments platform to compete with Apple Pay and PayPal By Justin Luna @_justinluna - January 31, 2023
A social media platform with a payment processor will face many obstacles in any & all westernized countries, so if Twitter wants to go there, it must first adhere to all national & international banking rules & regulations. To do banking transactions they will need a secured vault for storing and protecting vast amounts of very personal user data. Twitter also has to prove to regulators that they have a high level of competent permanent staff in place (on Twitter premises) to handle all the inherent security risks. Struggling to pay Twitter's daily operating costs as well as the long term debt will raise concerns about their ability to cover the additional escalating costs associated with maintaining the vault. This should factor heavily into the decision for granting the required licenses.
I don't think it will be a huge problem for Musk, after all he started PayPal. If it will be a success is another thing since Twitter is not associated with payments. And Facebook/Meta failed miserably when they tried to launch their own crypto currency named Diem which was formely known as Libra. So hopefully Musk won't make the same mistake.
Musk, in a response to a tweet, said that he would be interested in buying SVB (Silicon Valley Bank) after it collapsed this week. The speculation being that it would become the digital bank (payment processor) that Musk had envisioned when he was at X.com and PayPal and now wants to be part of Twitter. It may have been merely a tweet-tease but if he is seriously contemplating a buyout (using his own wealth), Tesla shares will no doubt be his piggy bank. There is also the FDIC - regulatory requirements are not transferable from one company to another.
