Doesn’t sound real great:
The whole business of having to wait for a one-time code to a “trusted device” sounds like a pain and if it’s via text message, that’s a huge security hole.
It also sounds like the banks are doing this for data: to track all your purchases. That’s another benefit for Apple Pay, as Apple says they don’t track anything.
BofA has been offering Zelle to its customers for quite some time.
Nobody in my family sees any point to it, so we’ve never used it. No advantage over Paypal/Venmo, and much more aggravating to use.
A digital wallet app would’ve been nice ten years ago, but it’s completely redundant and pointless (and, it seems, inferior) in the face of the big-three wallets: Apple, Google and Samsung.
Maybe they’ll stop supporting others’ wallet apps and demand that you use theirs or give up mobile payments with their cards. But that’s a dangerous game to play. Lots of people (myself included) will stop using their card altogether and maybe cancel it in favor of another card from another bank that continues working with Apple Pay.
Maybe, but it’s still redundant. As my credit card issuer, BofA already has access to my entire purchase history. Or is Paze going to share your purchase history among all the member banks? If so, I wonder why BofA would want to give their customers’ purchase history to Capital One.
Or are they expecting people with cards from unaffiliated banks to load those cards into a Paze wallet?
One difference that could influence some people is that Zelle only transmits funds between users’ banks. It does not hold funds on users’ behalf or act as a custodian of funds. So, there is no risk of Zelle suddenly shutting down and users’ losing their balances.
There are a few “inside baseball” reasons for a bank or credit union using Zelle and Paze rather than a homegrown solution. Without going into too much detail here, compliance and regulatory requirements make using an outside provider easier for many services (it is very common for bill pay and wire transfers to be outsourced, for example). Further, balance sheet management and reserve requirements often play a large role in make/buy decisions for financial institutions. Finally, Silicon Valley fintechs are able to pick the loosest regulator possible, if they choose to be regulated at all. For example, a lot of online payment services are regulated as payday lenders. This sort of maneuver is very difficult for banks and credit unions to exploit directly.
Both are among the banks that support Paze, as are Wells Fargo, Chase and PNC.
BoA’s description of the service was rather vague, and it took me a while to figure out what they were doing. It looks like they are adding it to all their credit cards, which is not necessarily a good way to sell the idea. I cancelled it.
That’s my point. If the goal is to collect purchase history:
Of course, the goal may not be to collect purchase history. They may simply want to glom onto the success of other companies that are too big for them to simply buy. Silly, but that’s the business world.