(I also don't think that hypothesis makes a lick of sense -- Apple+Google, not any particular app, is the "WeChat of the west".)

That being said, Wechat payments are also rife with every form of scam, irreversibility, and fake QR code issues that people in the West warn about. That (and the AML stuff) is why it seems to be getting more scrutiny by the Chinese govt.

For p2b, Apply Pay lets me tap my power button twice and hold it next to the payment terminal. Hard to get lower friction than that.

For p2p, the space is already saturated (Zelle, Venmo, etc.) It's unclear why I would want to use Twitter -- sorry, x -- for this in particular. Also, with the launch of FedNow, the days of new entrant intermediaries in the USA are coming to a close.

Finally, as Goldman Sachs just learned, consumer banking is a brutal business. I think the closest they got to building anything like breaking into consumer credit/banking was becoming the bank that supported the Apple-branded credit card.

There is a massive distance between an idea and its successful execution. Most of the success comes from execution, not the original idea.

But who would want those qualities in a bank? Banks should be boring.

It’s more like hours or days under Elon. Maybe weeks but certainly not years.