Zelle Business Booming for Fiserv
Credit unions are seeing more demands by members to offer P2P services.
Fiserv has been busy hooking up credit unions and other financial institutions to the person-to-person payment platform Zelle, according to new data.
The Brookfield, Wis.-based payments and fintech firm announced this week that it connected more than 360 credit unions and other financial institutions to Zelle via Fiserv’s Turnkey Service in 2019, bringing the total to almost 600. In addition, the number of people using Zelle via Fiserv to send money jumped 116% in 2019, and the number of people using it to receive money rose 145%. Transactions were up 207% in 2019, it added.
“Keeping up with continually changing consumer expectations is an ongoing challenge for retail financial institutions,” Fiserv President of Electronic Payments Tom Allanson said. “Technology can level the playing field, and Turnkey Service for Zelle enables financial institutions of all sizes to offer P2P payments and grow customer interactions.”
The Phoenix-based SunWest Federal Credit Union, which has $394 million in assets and about 51,000 members, said it used Fiserv products to help simplify its implementation of Zelle.
“We initially took a ‘wait and see’ approach when it came to Zelle,” SunWest Marketing Director Katie Defeo said. “Then we saw that the number one word being searched on our website was ‘Zelle,’ and we changed our minds. We realized this was something our members were seeking, and Turnkey Service for Zelle offered a practical way for us to get started.”
Zelle is owned by Early Warning Services, which is a fintech company owned by PNC, Bank of America, U.S. Bank, Chase, Wells Fargo, Capital One and BB&T.
In 2019, the Zelle Network processed $187 billion in payments, which was a 57% increase over 2018. It also processed 743 million transactions, which was a 72% increase over 2018.
As of Jan. 28, 2020, 766 financial institutions were contracted to participate on the Zelle Network. That represented nearly 70% of all U.S. checking accounts, it said. In the fourth quarter of 2019, more than 100 financial institutions joined the network, it said.