In just eight years, Zelle has revolutionized the way people send money. And the best is yet to come—peer-to-peer payments are expanding to small businesses and cross-border transactions, opening up a world of new possibilities.
In a PaymentsJournal Podcast, Tina Shirley, Senior Director of Product for Fiserv, and Brian Riley, Co-Head of Payments at Javelin Strategy & Research, discussed how Zelle has become a prominent part of the U.S. financial landscape and how it’s positioned for even greater growth.
A Strong Growth Story
The numbers for Zelle tell an impressive story. In the first half of 2025, it processed a record 2 billion transactions—a 19% increase over the same period in 2024—totaling nearly $600 billion. As a primary processing partner for Zelle, Fiserv is responsible for more than two-thirds of that volume.
This growth underscores the trust people place in Zelle. In less than a decade, users have become comfortable enough with this payment method to rely on it daily, across a variety of use cases and for substantial sums.
“We see larger dollar amount transactions in Zelle as compared to other P2P applications,” said Shirley. “That shows that people are really comfortable with using Zelle through their financial institution.”
Real-Time Payments Driving B2B Growth
One area where Zelle still has plenty of room to grow is in the B2B space, where real-time money movement capabilities have become critical. Small businesses, in particular, represent the fastest-growing segment across the network, with more than 7 million accounts now enrolled. These users increasingly expect that transactions can be completed instantly, especially when it comes to moving money.
“There’s been some pent-up demand for small businesses to be able to onboard to the network so that they can pay—and probably more importantly get paid—instantly using Zelle,” said Shirley. “We’ve seen stats that there’s been 31% growth in consumer-to-business payments just through Q2 of this year. So there’s already been a lot of growth in that space.”
Strong demand on the consumer side is further fueling this expectation.
“Something that’s important to me as a consumer is that I’ve used Zelle for many years myself to pay local vendors like the pool guy and the garden guy,” said Riley. “Something I never liked about it is that I have a business relationship with them, and I prefer to deal with it through a business account, so moving into that arena is significant.”
FIs Embrace Zelle
Zelle discontinued its standalone app a year ago, encouraging users to access the payment platform exclusively through their banking apps and websites. As a result, users increasingly associate the service with their own financial institution.
“When consumers were notified that the common app would be going away, I can only imagine that they were calling their financial institutions and asking when they could access Zelle through their mobile banking app,” said Shirley. “Or they were finding another financial institution who offered Zelle and transitioned to that.
“We have definitely seen an uptick in financial institutions recognizing that they need to offer Zelle to satisfy their customers or members—especially in the community financial institution segment,” she said. “More of the smaller community-based financial institutions are looking for that option to bring Zelle to their consumers.”
Fiserv’s research has found that Zelle is a strong indicator of a primary financial institution relationship, regardless of whether the bank is large or small. The platform has also helped level the playing field between large and smaller institutions.
“My wife and I use a community bank by selection,” said Riley. “It’s not a big institution, but it will transact just like a large bank would. Across the network, the overall experience that consumers and small business have access to is the same, regardless of the size of the institution. It’s an equalizer in a way.”
The Future of Zelle
Zelle’s capabilities open the door to several new opportunities in the payments landscape. One of the most promising areas is bill pay, where the simplicity of Zelle could provide a clear advantage.
“If we look broader about the payments capabilities in general, we start to streamline the money movement capability and integrate it in other contexts,” said Shirley. “We’re looking at things like offering Zelle as a payment option within the bill pay mode. Say I am paying a small business or my monthly bills and I realize I also need to pay my daycare provider and my lawn service. Why not do it in context of that bill pay from that same place?”
Another exciting frontier for Zelle is stablecoins, which could enable cross-border payments by minimizing friction between different currencies.
Fiserv recently launched its own stablecoin to unlock additional money movement use cases for consumers and businesses, both domestically and internationally. Zelle is reportedly exploring similar initiatives. These use cases are likely to expand further as the global economy becomes more interconnected.
Wherever Zelle goes next, it will already have the trust of financial institutions, having demonstrated the reliability and security of its model.
“When you get into the trust factor, this is a very bank-centric model and you’re going bank to bank on these transactions through Fiserv and the vendors that do the clearance,” said Riley. “That’s a significant area for confidence.”
Shirley added: “At our recent client conference, I had a session to talk about what’s on the horizon for Zelle. I started by asking for a show of hands (from those) who already have Zelle—it was only about half. When I’ve done these sessions in the past, it was mostly existing clients who already had Zelle who wanted to hear what was coming. But there was a lot of interest in seeing what’s (ahead), especially from those who have not yet brought Zelle into their mobile banking app. We’re really seeing that interest grow.”
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