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Zelle Review
Zelle (Link) is a free service used by most major banks to send money freely between friends. Instead of having an outside provider (like Paypal, Venmo, or Square) pull the money from your bank and send it to your friend’s electronic wallet, Zelle pulls the money directly from your bank and deposits it in their’s. This saves having the extra account, and can make for a faster transaction.
The company was formerly known as Clearxchange, and is being rebranded as Zelle (pronounced Zell, the final ‘e’ is silent). Chase QuickPay uses the Zelle/Clearxchange network, as do most other major banks.
Zelle – New Features
Two new features are being added as part of the transition from Clearxchange to Zelle:
- Transfers from partner banks are now instant. This is an awesome feature when it works – only those banks within the network will transfer instantly. You can send money to anyone, even those with who bank with non-partner banks, but it can take a few days.
- Send money with just an email address on mobile number. Previously, some banks may have required the person’s name or address in order to send funds. Zelle just needs an email or phone number, similar to the way Paypal and Square work.
Affiliated Banks
Full list of banks and credit unions who use Zelle can be found here. Here are some of the bigger one’s: Ally, Bank of America, Capital One, Chase, Citi, PNC, TD, US Bank, USAA, and Wells Fargo.
Some of these have not yet completed the integration into Zelle, as of this writing, and will be doing so in the coming months. Chase QuickPay now calls themselves ‘Chase QuickPay with Zelle’ which helps people understand that it works even for transfer to non-Chase recipients.
Each email address or mobile number is linked to one bank. If you receive money to two different banks, you can use separate email addresses and link one email with one bank and another email with another bank. Or use your email address for one bank and phone number for the other. You can even use Zelle this way to instantly transfer money between two of your own bank accounts.
Limits
Zelle doesn’t have any sort of limits, rather each using bank decides on how much they’ll allow. Here’s Chase’s rule and here’s Capital One’s.
I don’t know of any limits for receiving money with Zelle. They might make you go through additional verifications (e.g. give in the last 4 of your SSN) to receive larger transactions.
Since the money goes straight from sender to recipient, Zelle should not be issuing any 1099 tax forms. (In some scenarios a sender needs to issue a form 1099 to the recipient.)
How to Send with Zelle
Sending money with Zelle is done through your bank’s website or mobile app. You should see a Transfer or Send Money tab somewhere. That uses the Zelle network.
Ask the recipient for their email or phone number, even if they’ve never used Zelle before, and add them as a recipient in the app/website. The system will have you name your recipient; you can use their real name, their nickname, or whatever you’d like, just make sure the email/phone number is correct. You can see a walk-through with screenshots in this Travelwithgrant post.
Clearxchange has their own website to send money. This is used for those whose banks are not part of the Zelle network, they can send money using the Clearxchange website. Alternatively, you can use the Zelle app (iOS, Android) which transfer money by linking your debit card instantly.
How to Receive with Zelle
Anyone with a US bank account can receive money with Zelle, even if their bank is not a Zelle partner. This means that you can send money, for example, from your Chase bank account to anyone with a US bank account.
The recipient gets an email/text from Zelle asking them to link their bank account. If they’ve previously used this email address or phone number to receive money with Zelle/Clearxchange they don’t need to register again. The money will go straight to their bank account within a few days, even if the previous transaction was with someone else or with a different bank. It’s all tied to the email address or mobile phone number.
Note, the recipient may have to verify themselves with Zelle with their name, address, or even the last 4 of their SSN, but none of these details are passed on the sender. Sender only sees the email address given to them.
Final Thoughts
I think the instant transfers feature makes all the difference. When sending your friend $10 for the cab fare, you want the transaction finalized instantly, you don’t want them getting an email about funds which will hopefully come in 3 business days. The huge conglomerate of banks means that a high percentage of Americans will be eligible for instant transfers will Zelle, and even those who use other banks can receive money with slower delivery.
It remains to be seen if people will finally start using direct bank transfers instead of the various money transfer operations like Paypal, Venmo, Square Cash, and Facebook.
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View Comments (81)
I send money thru Zelle with BB&T, unfortunately, if you send money that is over your allowable limit (whether daily or monthly) and you are rejected, that amount is still counted towards your limits even though you didn't send any money. Not sure if this is a BB&T problem or a Zelle problem. BB&T can't even tell me when the system will be "cleared" to be able to reset my limits...this system is flawed
Your readers should be advised that anyone can inadvertently transfer money to the wrong account - in my case, a trust account resulting in co-mingling of funds and a big, expensive mess. Also, it takes 2 weeks to shut Zelle down, with no way to reach them except through your bank's customer service - even they don't have a telephone number for Zelle.
We were just scanned using Zelle. There is no fraud protection and I realized the scam as it was pending. There was nothing they could do even though we knew the bank account persons name and social. This is why scammers are using this. No fraud protection. How do we get rid of this scam system endorsed by banks we trust. To get them to stop endorsing it. Call and say you want to make a formal complaint. They have to report those to their board and the rlabel regulators. These are a big deal and your voice will be heard.
A note of extreme displeasure with Zelle, an institution that advertises fast, secure and easy transfer of money between bank accounts of two individuals.
It may be secure, but it is neither fast, nor easy.
I spent the last hour talking to my bank and the bank assured me that I am properly set up to receive money from Zelle, using either my mobile phone number or my email address..
A spent most of that time interacting with the Zell automated phone disservice, on-line services and finally got to talk to a real person. The 'real' person read me (obviously from a script, obviously has done this many times) what it takes to transmit moneys between accounts, and when that deluge of words became too much for me to absorb, I interrupted her with a simple request: set up my email address to send money to my account, where the same email address is already set up to receive money into my account.
She told me that she cannot do that.
Irritated, I hung up on her.
Zelle is a black hole to put your money in. That part is easy.
I’m glad it worked for you but I transferred monies to my daughter almost two weeks ago and still know monies in her account!,, I have called the bank US bank and they can’t help me. I have contacted Zelle and left three emails never heard back from them! Do they even exist. I don’t think so!, I think it’s a scam
And I’m going to let everyone I know what I think of this company
I agree. Someone just sent me money and from what I read it is SUPER EASY for the sender, but my bank is not registered to the App asked for every detail on my DEBIT CARD? Are you kidding! That is beyond stupid. NOBODY has my debit card information! How can that be secure with a third party in any way? That is access to my entire account! Why can't it go into a bank account or something that can be managed? Who would give anybody that information!! And what company in this century would make that SOP? "Lets just get all their debit card info so if we are compromised in anyway someone can clean them all out." HELLO! NO WAY am I using this!
I gave a tenant the bank information she needed to transfer money using ACH. Bank of America sent her to Zelle instead. Our bank doesn't have Zelle, and we don't have a smartphone, so it won't work. Judging from what others have been saying recently, maybe we're lucky. It's very disturbing to see Zelle can be used to lift money out of your bank account. What a fiasco.
You need to go back and update the original review. It may have seemed like a good idea at the time, but not any more.
This is one of the dumbest services for transfer of funds that I know! The entire world has figured out how to do a simple ACH transaction, but not these guys. You have to download an app, register your email or mobile number, make sure your bank has partnered with them (I called my bank, spoke to the branch manager, he did not know anything about them ...), blah, blah, blah. I called Zelle support number, and they acted like it is my problem that they have all these steps for me to receive funds. Nowadays, a gorilla can wire funds to your bank account without any effort on your part, but not with Zelle. Their process is anything but easy, simple or secure. Do yourself and people you want to send money to a favor, and avoid them.
Once upon a time, the banks set up the Automated Clearing House for electronic payments. It worked (and still works) just fine. SunTrust now tells me that I cannot set up ACH payments to individuals anymore and that I must go through Zelle. This requires setup with a smartphone app that will not install unless you give it access to your storage and phone information. This is all about the banks gathering more information about their customers, not providing better service. Not going to do it. Will try Bill Pay as an alternative.
I would go so far as to say it is trash or garbage - but I will say IMHO that they really flubbed an opportunity. There just isn't a compelling reason to use it over Google Wallet - and in fact after testing for 4 months; Google Wallet is a vastly superior experience and beats it hands down. Google Wallet is free, transfers are usually completed in a few minutes and you have a consistent interface with transaction history.