Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

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https://www.forbes.com/sites/ronshevlin/2019/02/11/venmo-ver... (According to company reports, Zelle processed $35 billion in P2P (person-to-person) payments in Q4 2018 versus $19 billion for Venmo. For the full year, Zelle's total was $122 billion, almost double Venmo's $62 billion.) (2019)

https://www.zellepay.com/press-releases/zeller-closes-2020-r... (Zelle® Closes 2020 with Record $307 Billion Sent on 1.2 Billion Transactions, Nearly 7,000 financial institutions are represented in the Zelle Network via their customers using the Zelle common mobile app, Achieving ubiquity with banks and credit unions: Nearly 500 new financial institutions of all sizes joined the Zelle Network® in 2020)

https://www.businessofapps.com/data/venmo-statistics/ (Venmo key statistics. Venmo processed $159 billion in total payment volume in 2020)

If anyone can plug into instant payments, your value as an instant payment provider that just does payments will fall rapidly.

Zelle is useless to me because my credit union (like many other banking organization) doesn't support it.

Really looking forward to a governmental, ubiquitous solution.

> to company reports, Zelle processed $35 billion in P2P (person-to-person) payments in Q4 2018 versus $19 billion for Venmo.

The thing that makes this a bit trickier is that Zelle is transparently used under the hood by some banks to move money between accounts owned by the same person. I've moved thousands of dollars between two of my accounts with Zelle but the alternative would have been an ACH transfer or depositing a check to myself, not Venmo.

I know it's just one anecdote, but when splitting a check, my social circle always reaches for Venmo, never for Zelle. And yet I've probably moved more total money via Zelle because I occasionally use it for different, higher-value transactions.

There's some selection bias at play for different transaction types (including many where people might not even realize they're using Zelle) so we should be careful looking at only the headline numbers.

I don't argue that Zelle is successful but it certainly did not kill Venmo. Venmo is alive and well. I think Zelle is more useful for things like tenants paying landlords, while Venmo is more for splitting a restaurant bill, so it doesn't shock me that Zelle is processing a lot more coin.

> while Venmo is more for splitting a restaurant bill

One might assume this feature will be built into banking apps as time goes on and instant payments are ubiquitous. It's already in my Chase iOS app [1]. I argue it's a feature, not a business. I concede we'll have to see what happens when deposit accounts at real banks are given access to instant payment functionality.

[1] https://www.chase.com/digital/customer-service/helpful-tips/...

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