Zelle quarterly volume reaches $44B, as average transaction size falls

Early Warning's Zelle P2P network processed $44 billion in payment volume over 171 million transactions during the second quarter of 2019, a growth of 56% in volume and 71% in transactions year-over-year.

The bank-operated Early Warning reports that it has 480 financial institutions contracted to participate on the Zelle Network and that 179 are online and processing transaction today.

As Zelle becomes more ubiquitous it also should be expected that the average transaction value will continue to fall, as it will be used more for everyday transactions. In the third quarter of 2017, the average value of each transaction stood at $292 and has steadily fallen over time, reaching $280 in the second quarter of 2018 and $257 for the second quarter of 2019.

“More than 64% of U.S. demand deposit accounts will have access to Zelle through the 480 financial institutions contracted to join the Zelle Network. We continue to see double-digit increases in new customer wins each month, demonstrating continued demand for Zelle from national and regional banks and credit unions,” Al Ko, Early Warning's CEO, said in a press release.

PayPal recently announced that its rival P2P network Venmo processed $24 billion during the second quarter of 2019, up 70% over last year. It did not release the number of transactions for that volume. However, as a company, PayPal reported that its total payment volume was $172 billion during the second quarter of 2019 over all of its brands including Venmo, PayPal and Xoom, and that total transactions were 3 billion — about $57 per transaction.

Despite the strong growth of the Zelle network, Early Warning has received a fair share of pushback and criticism from credit unions, banks and the media over cost and fraud issues.

Credit unions have charged that Zelle is aimed to serve mainly large banks and that they don’t see the value in offering the service to their members as it will add expenses and open them up to liability and security issues. The media continues to report that users on the Zelle network are vulnerable to scams that exploit users' trust in their banks.