The US banking consortium behind person-to-person (P2P) payment service Zelle released the brand’s standalone app on the App Store and Google Play, as it looks to step-up its challenge to digital providers including PayPal’s Venmo.
Zelle is backed by some of the US’ largest banks including Wells Fargo, JP Morgan, Capital One and Bank of America, under the guise of a consortium named Early Warning Services (EWS). Its original Zelle service was unveiled in June and provided cross-bank P2P money transfer on the apps of ten of its associated retail banks.
The company also plans to expand the service across a range of other financial institutions in the US, reaching a potential base of 86 million customers.
Since June, EWS said the brand had added an average of 50,000 new customers per day.
In a statement, the company said the launch of the standalone Zelle Pay app would allow customers to transfer money to “millions more” people as a result of partnerships with Visa and Mastercard.
For the first time, customers downloading the app will not require an account with one of the partner banks as the money can be transferred from any registered Visa or Mastercard debit card.
Paul Finch, CEO of EWS said: “Our partners are revolutionising banking, reducing friction from finance, and making it convenient to send money in the moment.”
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