As a growing number of consumers have embraced digital payments during the COVID-19 pandemic, financial institutions have added or enhanced person-to-person (P2P) payment capabilities, with more than 200 banks and credit unions going live on the Zelle Network® via Fiserv to date in 2020.
In total, Fiserv, Inc. (NASDAQ: FISV), a leading global provider of financial services technology solutions, has enabled implementation of P2P payments for more than 400 institutions via the Turnkey Service for Zelle. And with more financial institutions choosing to offer Zelle, Fiserv has optimized the path from pipeline to go live so that banks and credit unions can get their customers up and running faster than ever before.
The Federal Savings Bank and SECU are among the financial institutions that have recently added or enhanced their P2P payment capabilities.
“We chose Zelle because we wanted to offer our customers an innovative way to send money quickly via P2P,” said Jackie Katz, vice president of Retail Banking at The Federal Savings Bank, a Chicago-based veteran-owned bank with offices across the U.S. “We had been offering a different service, but it did not have the speed or name recognition. Since moving to Zelle via Fiserv, we have seen a nearly 1000% increase in transactions.”
“Even prior to COVID-19, our strategy has been to push towards more sophisticated digital technology for our members to allow them the ease of banking from their homes,” said Becky Smith, executive vice president, chief strategy and marketing officer at SECU of Maryland, which serves more than 250,000 members throughout the state. “Now that we are in a new environment, being able to offer Zelle has proven to be even more meaningful to our members who have been asking for a service like this.”
Zelle allows consumers to send and receive money directly from one U.S. financial institution account to another, typically within minutes when both parties are already enrolled.
“We’ve seen consistent growth in P2P payments every month for the past three years, and the recent pandemic has accelerated that trend,” said Tom Allanson, president, Electronic Payments at Fiserv. “The number of financial institutions offering Zelle via Fiserv has more than doubled in 2020, expanding access to easy, fast and secure digital payments at a time people need them most.”