Zelle Leverages Existing Financial Ties to Top Fintechs in Money Moved

Early Warning Services’ Zelle Network is one of the later apps to the digital payments party. PayPal, Venmo, and Cash App all staked their claim to the world of online peer-to-peer transactions years ago, giving these institutions a major head start compared to Zelle’s launch in 2017.

That said, with Early Warning being owned by JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and five other major U.S. banks, Zelle can hardly be described as an underdog. And as it turns out, Zelle has leveraged the extensive networks of these financial institutions to dominate the market incredibly quickly, to the point where the company moved $490 billion in transactions last year, more than double what was processed by Venmo and over thirty times’ Cash App’s rate.

To an insider like Crone Consulting CEO Richard Crone, there’s no mystery behind Zelle’s rapid ascent in the payments field. “They leveraged the mobile banking app, and so when the option appeared inside the app of your bank it was unquestioned. It had instant credibility and it had instant awareness.”

It’s clear that name recognition and ease of interaction with other financial tools are some of Zelle’s main draws, especially as the app charges banks a higher service fee for transactions than some of its competitors.