Despite A Late Start, Bank-Owned Zelle Moves More Money Than Venmo And Cash App Combined

Launched in 2017, The Zelle Network is a latecomer to the world of peer-to-peer payments compared with competitors like PayPal’s
PYPL
Venmo or Block’s Cash App. Despite having launched eight years after Venmo and four years after Cash App, the service has processed more than five billion transactions worth nearly $1.5 trillion in its first five years of business. Its key to success has been a killer distribution strategy, which has integrated Zelle with some of the country’s largest banks’ online banking services and mobile apps.

Zelle is run by Early Warning Services, a fintech company owned by seven of the United States’ largest banks: JPMorgan Chase
JPM
, Bank of America
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, Capital One
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, PNC, Truist, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo
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. It appears to most users as an option within their desktop or mobile banking app and processed $490 billion in volume in 2021. Meanwhile, Venmo processed $230 billion worth of transactions and Cash App just $15 billion.

Zelle’s rapid growth is attributable in large part to its vast distribution network. The service has partnered with nearly 1,700 banks and credit unions representing 619 million checking, savings and money markets accounts, or about 79% of all such accounts in the United States. Zelle appears to consumers through their mobile banking apps, lending the service wide visibility and credibility, which allowed it to scale quickly…