The Zelle person-to-person network is being used more often for purchasing, with consumer payments to small businesses up 30% from the prior quarter.
The consumer-to-SMB increase comes after several large banks, including Bank of America, Chase, Citi, U.S. Bank, FirstBank, Frost Bank, FirstBank and Morgan Stanley, made Zelle available to small- business customers earlier this year, Zelle said Monday.
During the quarter that ended Sept. 30, Zelle users sent $4.5 billion in payments to U.S. small businesses, Zelle said. The Zelle network is operated by bank-owned Early Warning Services.
The heaviest small-business Zelle users include property owners and service providers to homes, and well as companies in the fitness industry, Zelle has said.
Zelle also powered around $500 million payments in the third quarter from all types of businesses to consumers, primarily for B2C disbursements, Zelle said in a press release.
In the past 12 months, Zelle notched 1 billion transactions, with 323 million transactions alone in the third quarter, up 17% from the previous quarter. Payment volume during the quarter totaled $84 billion, up 18%, Zelle said.
The Zelle network continues to expand, with 731 financial institutions live and nearly 300 more under contract to go live in coming months, according to Zelle.
In a recent survey Zelle conducted, 75% of users said they are most likely to use P2P services to give cash to friends and family during the pandemic, Zelle said.
