TikTok is building a feature that could let users send money to one another inside direct messages, Bloomberg reported Tuesday, citing code found in the current release of the company’s US iPhone app.
A TikTok spokesperson told Bloomberg that nothing is being tested in any market. That places the effort at an early stage, with no commitment from the company to ship the product.
Code points to a familiar transfer flow
The code describes a standard consumer payments flow. A recipient would have to tap to accept a transfer before it expires. The sender would receive status updates through push notifications or an inbox message. A short note could also be attached to the payment, similar to the captions commonly used on Venmo.
According to the report, settlement would run through TikTok Pay, the wallet product the company already operates in Vietnam, Malaysia, and Thailand for TikTok Shop checkout.
Payments already exist across TikTok’s ecosystem
Money already moves through TikTok in several ways. Users can buy goods from merchants through TikTok Shop. Viewers can also purchase digital coins and use them to send virtual gifts to creators and livestream hosts, with those gifts later converted into cash.
What the app still cannot do is move money directly between two users. Bloomberg said that gap helps explain why Venmo and Cash App handles appear in so many TikTok bios: user-to-user transactions, and the economics around them, are still pushed outside the platform.
Spending volumes show why TikTok is interested
The scale of spending inside the app helps explain the company’s interest in expanding payments. On Sensor Tower’s count, TikTok users have spent more than $2.9 billion in the app so far this year. The app has ranked first worldwide in in-app purchase revenue since 2022.
In the US, users spend more inside TikTok than they do inside YouTube, Facebook, or Instagram, the report said.
ByteDance has been building payments for years
Bloomberg said ByteDance has spent years assembling payment tools, while both ByteDance and TikTok are recruiting for financial services roles. Several ByteDance managers involved in the payments effort previously worked at JPMorgan Chase, which had earlier helped the company build its payments infrastructure.
The broader strategy has parallels elsewhere in social media. Elon Musk has spent the past year pushing X toward an everything app model, and some creators are already testing X Money transfers between users.
Regulatory pressure remains unresolved
The legal backdrop is less clear. Earlier this year, TikTok and ByteDance closed a deal that moved parts of the US operation to American investors. This month, the Trump administration dropped its ban on the app for federal government devices.
At the same time, state attorneys general have built cases around TikTok’s existing payment tools. In various complaints, they have alleged that those tools facilitated money laundering, violated money transmission laws, or left children exposed to sexual and financial exploitation.
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