P2P payments – one of the key segments where FinTechs have significantly dominated the banks. The PayPals, Venmos, and Paytms of the world have been enjoying their lead in their respective markets. However, the US payments market is witnessing a comeback story – the one where banks have come together to combat Venmo’s market dominance in P2P payments. Zelle, the bank-led instant payments platform developed by Early Warning, continues to make waves in the US payments market.
Earlier known as ‘clearXchange,’ Zelle was founded in 2017 with the biggest banks in the US working with Early Warning to come up with a real-time P2P payments platform. The platform first came into action when it was integrated by Bank of America into its mobile app. In June 2017, the platform was officially launched, enabling the customers of its partner banks to transfer money in real time for free. For those whose banks which weren’t Zelle’s partners yet, a standalone mobile app was launched in September 2017.
The biggest driver of Zelle’s growth is the access to a vast customer base – courtesy its partner banks. As of today, Zelle has 114 partner banks and credit unions, 25 of whom have already integrated Zelle in their mobile apps. Out of the $25 billion which Zelle moved in Q1 2018, ~$9 billion was moved through Bank of America’s mobile app. For more than 95 million consumers, Zelle is already available from the convenience of their mobile banking app, with no additional downloads required. Even when they don’t specifically seek to use Zelle, it’s already present in their own mobile banking app and this has been a great boost to Zelle’s numbers.
On a parallel note, Zelle doesn’t have to
