Zelle is reporting that consumers and small businesses moved $481 billion in the first half of 2024.
Zelle is a payments and transfers services that was launched by a consortium of many banks. The feature is designed to compete with the growing number of alternatives in the marketplace – mostly created by Fintechs.
According to Zelle, operated by Early Warning Services, LLC, the services enabled person-to-person payments for 143 million consumers and small businesses to move nearly half a trillion dollars, up 28% year-over-year in the first half of 2024. The number of transactions hit 1.7 billion – a 27% increase year over year.
Zelle reported that users sent $1.8 million per minute, $110 million per hour, and $2.6 billion per day in the first half of 2024.
Cameron Fowler, CEO of Early Warning, said their 2200 banks and credit unions enable the leading network for digital payments. He emphasized the security of the platform – an area of criticism by certain individuals. Fowler said that consumers and small businesses benefit from Zelle’s “reliability, speed, and security when paying people they know and trust.”
The company added that Zelle “continues its efforts to fight scams and fraud on the platform through new technology, consumer education, and user interface updates.” Part of the challenge has been that once a transaction has been completed, there is little recourse if the action was in error or due to fraud.
Zelle is now providing data-driven insights for financial institutions to help them identify potentially suspicious payments. The company stated that its efforts have been effective as scams have dropped by almost 50%, resulting in 99.95% of payments being sent without a report of fraud.
For users of the service, money in the US is typically available directly in bank accounts within minutes.
