急成長を続けるZELLE：デジタルバンキングにとっての意味

The volume of Zelle© payments at major US banks is still increasing rapidly. Digital product owners and distribution channel leads should be aware of this continuing strong growth as they plan their roadmap, marketing, and budgets this year and beyond. As a former head of digital channels and mobile banking product owner, I see some opportunities here for digital leaders to evaluate the value of digital payments to the organization, invest in further Zelle adoption, and make sure digital and retail distribution roadmaps are prioritized accordingly.

Last week, two major US banks provided impressive Zelle growth statistics in their 4Q earnings presentations.

Truist Financial reported 27 million Zelle transactions in the fourth quarter of last year, an increase of 43% from the same period a year earlier.

At Bank of America, whose customers originate about one-sixth of all Zelle Network payments, total (sent) Zelle payments first surpassed written checks two years ago. But in this past quarter the bank reported that Zelle payments were DOUBLE the number of checks and exceeded $100 billion in value for the first time ever. Growth of Zelle payment volume at the bank has been increasing by about 25% annually in recent years and is not slowing. In fact, it is slightly accelerating.

Zelle growth nationwide was increasing at a 10% clip quarter-over-quarter in mid-2023, according to EWS (the most recent data published). More than 80% of US deposit accounts have access to the Zelle feature through their bank’s participation in the Zelle Network¹, and more have access through a standalone Zelle app.

Zelle payments is one of the only transactional features of digital banking still enjoying such rapid growth. For example, at Bank of America in the past year, digital user growth was up just over 9%, the number of Erica© conversations was up 12%, and digital account opening was flat (at a still impressive 49%).

There are several takeaways for digital bankers:

It’s time to (re)measure the increasing value that digital features are providing to the bank. First, understand your own Zelle volumes (or other P2P payments features). It’s important to highlight the costs of your deposit operations for each type: in-branch deposit; ATM deposit; Mobile Deposit; and “no-deposit” (Zelle). A cost-of-deposits calculation could be eye-opening to your firm’s senior leadership. Knowing the cost of your participation in the Zelle network is also an important calculation – what is the ultimate cost basis for receiving deposits in each channel? The migration of payments to digital could be providing significant cost savings back to the bank. Beyond operational cost savings, your customer retention or acquisition success might be attributable to the availability of direct digital payments. If you’re a regional or community bank, do your in-market competitors offer Zelle or not? With the level of usage growth being reported, this feature has clear value for customers. Can you identify who the frequent payment customers are? Examine how they align with your most active digital customer segment. Compare them with your recent new customer base.

Encourage P2P (Zelle) adoption since there is plenty more room to grow, apparently. With growth at these levels, there is still a great opportunity for banks to promote customer adoption, balancing any marketing costs with the clear return of lower cost-of-operations, as calculated in #1 above. Because the first-time use of Zelle can be cumbersome for some customers, it makes sense to focus there -- on feature introduction, expectation setting and instruction, and other messaging that supports a satisfying first-time use journey to maximize adoption and continued use of the feature.

Digital payments have achieved the primary position for attention and resources. Check volume won’t go to zero. But ATM and mobile deposits demand less attention. Check volume in the US has likely been declining at roughly 7% annually, according to the Federal Reserve Payments Study in 2022. Mobile deposit (RDC) is pretty much “settled tech” now. It’s a good time for product owners to make sure it works (very) well, but further investment/innovation is likely not a high priority.

^1.Zelle Network is run by Early Warning Services (EWS), a financial technology company owned by seven major banks: Bank of America, Capital One, JPMorgan Chase, PNC Bank, Truist, U.S. Bank, and Wells Fargo.