As New Services Roil P2P, Fiserv Gets Set to Shut Down Its Popmoney Network

Fiserv Inc. will discontinue its longstanding Popmoney peer-to-peer payments service on June 30, the processing giant said, following notices being posted by participating banks. The move comes as the processing giant shifts its priorities to supporting the bank-owned Zelle network, according to a Fiserv spokesperson.

“Due to the tremendous success of the Zelle network, which Fiserv offers access to through its Turnkey Service for Zelle, and the growing demand for faster payments, Fiserv has prioritized Zelle as the go-forward P2P solution for our clients,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “The majority of our Popmoney clients have already transitioned to Zelle, and others are in the process of doing so.”  

The Popmoney service, which Brookfield, Wis.-based Fiserv launched 11 years ago, competes with the well-known P2P networks PayPal and Venmo as well as Zelle, which was launched in 2017 as a service of the bank-controlled technology firm Early Warnings Services. Popmoney also faces pressure from the expected launch in July of real-time payments by the Federal Reserve.

At least some participating financial institutions began posting notices on their Web sites about Popmoney’s discontinuation as early as March, with some announcements mentioning a June 24 effective date. More recent notices have cited June 30, a date confirmed by Fiserv Wednesday.

A recent example is a notice posted by Silicon Valley Bank on May 25 noting that Popmoney’s service will cease at 6 p.m. Eastern Time on June 30. The site recommends users cancel all recurring or future-dated payments scheduled for or after that date. First Citizens Bank acquired the bank in March for $16.5 billion after SVB collapsed following a rapid devaluation in its cryptocurrency assets.

Providers of P2P services generally face an increasingly competitive market. Aside from the Fed’s expected introduction of its real-time payments service FedNow, other developments are also influencing decision-making in the business of person-to-person money movement. One important factor is a move by Visa Inc. to create what amounts to a network of networks for P2P. The service, called Visa+, has attracted PayPal, Venmo, DailyPay, i2c, TabaPay, and Western Union. With the interoperability promised by the network, users of one service will be able pay, or receive payments from, users of another. Visa announced the service last month, but it isn’t expected to be widely available until the middle of next year.

Popmoney was an early entrant in the digital P2P market, having been launched in 2010 by a startup called CashEdge, which Fiserv acquired in September 2011 for $465 million. Early in 2012, it combined the service with its own ZashPay network under the Popmoney name. The network included a number of major names in banking, including Citibank, PNC Bank, and Fifth Third Bank. Fiserv launched real-time payments on the network in the spring of 2013 with Popmoney Instant Payments.