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Consumers and small businesses sent a record $481 billion through Zelle in the first six months of the year.
That’s $1.8 million per minute sent by users, $110 million per hour, or about $2.6 billion per day, the peer-to-peer digital payments network said Thursday. This marks a 28% increase from the same period a year ago.
In all, Zelle’s 143 million enrolled users sent money 1.7 billion times in the first half of 2024, according to the company. Denise Leonhard, general manager of Zelle, told Quartz that these figures have her feeling “pretty positive” that the platform will reach its $1 trillion target this year.
Zelle was created in 2017 by Early Warning Services — a company co-owned by seven major U.S. banks including JPMorgan Chase (JPM+0.01%), Wells Fargo (WFC-0.44%), and Bank of America (BAC-1.66%) — to be a competitor to Venmo (PYPL+0.37%) and CashApp (SQ+0.67%).
Payment apps have boomed in popularity in recent years, with more than three-quarters of Americans reporting that they’ve used a payment app as of 2022, according to a Pew Research Center survey.
When it comes to Zelle, Leonhard said the convenience and security of a payments app backed by — and linked to — a bank account, has helped fuel its continued growth.
“The reason why Zelle is so successful is because it’s within your banking app, and it’s a product and an extension of your bank where you securely log in and you’re in your bank account,” Leonhard said. “And then you’re sending money from a insured and regulated bank account to another bank account.”
The company has also emphasized efforts to fight fraud amid regulatory scrutiny of scams in its network. Despite Zelle’s growth in transaction volume last year (which totaled $806 billion), reports of scams and fraud decreased by nearly 50%, the company said. That means 99.95% of payments were sent without a report of fraud.
In August, several banks disclosed in regulatory filings that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was probing their handling of customer funds on Zelle. The Wall Street Journal (NWSA+0.05%), citing people familiar with the matter, reported that the broad investigation was meant to look into how JPMorgan, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo specifically respond to customer disputes on the platform.
National Consumers League Vice President John Breyault called the scale of fraud on the platform “unacceptably high” in testimony at a hearing in May. It’s estimated that the total fraud rate on Zelle could exceed $1 billion annually by next year.
Leonhard said Zelle has been working with partners, including the Better Business Bureau and the National Council on Aging, to use education to stem scams before they start. Zelle has also implemented “road bumps” in the app that warn users of potential scams, which she said were viewed 700 million times annually.
Earlier this month, Early Warning revealed that its digital wallet, Paze, became available to 125 million credit and debit cardholders at its seven parent banks. That platform is part of the company’s push to fend off competition from digital wallet and online payment providers such as Apple Pay (AAPL+0.31%) and PayPal.