This study was completed using data from FIs that have adopted Zelle®. Early Warning provided aggregated consumer deposit data from Q2 2020 to Q1 2021 that included both key customer characteristics and summary metrics. The study found FIs that offer Zelle® experience a lift in overall customer engagement. These higher levels of engagement are most significant among low-engagement, new-to-bank and low-balance customers.

“Community banks and credit unions might drop out of partnerships with instant-payment apps like Zelle if required to reimburse customers who fall victim to scams, two industry trade groups said. Facing pressure from lawmakers and regulators to do more to protect customers from fraud, the seven large banks that own Zelle are working on a plan to standardize refunds for customers duped into sending money. Scams using instant-payment apps like Zelle, Venmo and CashApp are expected to cost Americans $3 billion by 2026, up from $1.6 billion in 2021, according to a recent report by ACI Worldwide, a payments-software company. Zelle, which is owned by JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co., U.S. Bancorp, Capital One Financial Corp., PNC Financial Services Group and Truist Financial, allows customers to make free instant payments between individual bank accounts. Customers can send money from their bank accounts to others in real time, but there is no way to reverse payments when transactions go wrong. (Subscription required)”

“Early Warning Services, LLC, the network owner and operator of Zelle®, today responded to misleading reports of fraud and scams on the Zelle Network®. Tens of millions of consumers safely use Zelle® every day with more than 99.9% of payments sent without any report of fraud or scams.  Any external analysis done is incomplete and does not reflect the efforts and data reported by more than 1,700 financial institutions on the Zelle Network®. Wells Fargo is a leader in taking steps to protect its customers from fraud and scams. Based on data reported to the Zelle Network®, recent statements regarding Wells Fargo’s fraud and scam rates are inaccurate. Wells Fargo’s rates of reported fraud and scams are extraordinarily low and comparable to the Zelle Network® as a whole, where rates of reported fraud and scams represent less than 0.1% of all transactions.”

“Zelle’s payments volume increased 27% year over year (YoY) in Q2 2022 to $155 billion, per a press release. Zelle’s payment volume reached $120 billion in the same period last year, growing 58% YoY thanks to a major uptick in adoption among financial institutions (FIs). It has moved more than 5 billion transactions worth $1.5 billion since launching in 2017.More than 99.9% of Zelle payments are sent without any reports of fraud. Nearly 17,000 banks and credit unions offer Zelle—up from 10,000 as of February.”

In the past five years, consumers and businesses, small and large, have sent more than five billion Zelle^® payments, totaling nearly $1.5 trillion, according to Early Warning Services, LLC, the network operator of Zelle^®.

Zelle^® users have leveraged the convenience and security of Zelle^® to gift money, pay rent, reimburse friends and family for shared costs, receive reimbursements, or access money in critical moments, usually within minutes using Zelle^®.

“Early Warning Services, LLC, announces Verify Identity, a synthetic identity fraud detection solution for qualifying financial services organizations (FSOs), mobile network providers, corporations and government entities. This new technology service combines predictive scoring with rules-based solutions to determine the likelihood that a prospective customer is legitimate while complying with industry regulations. “Early Warning is fighting back against synthetic identity fraud with the introduction of Verify Identity,” said Robin Love, vice president of product management at Early Warning. “Verify Identity includes our predictive ID Confidence Score with an additional synthetic indicator, making this solution uniquely different from others in the marketplace. Verify Identity will challenge the growing issue of data breaches and identity fraud by introducing this unparalleled synthetic identity detection feature.”