Zelle Beefs Up Access to CUs and Community Banks, Adds More Resellers

Zelle, the peer-to-peer payment service operated by Early Warning Services LLC, announced late Tuesday 337 financial institutions joined the network in 2025. The majority of the institutions are community banks and credit unions with assets of less than $10 billion.

The influx of new financial institutions gives Zelle access to at least 13 million more bank and credit union accounts across 46 states and territories in the United States, the peer-to-peer payments network says.

Onboarding small financial institutions to its network was a major focus for Zelle in 2025, as the network already reaches 80% of bank and credit union accounts in the U.S.

“[Our] goal is to make Zelle available to every bank and credit union that wants to offer it,” a Zelle spokesperson says by email. “In many rural areas, these institutions are the only physical banking presence, and digital tools like Zelle help them compete for customers and retain customers by providing access to the same technology available to larger banks.”

A recent survey revealed that 74% of users said Zelle has positively affected the way they feel about their personal bank and that one in three users would open a new account at a financial institution that offers Zelle if their current financial institution stopped providing it, the spokesperson adds.  

To reach smaller financial institutions, Zelle expanded its relationship with resellers that distribute Zelle’s P2P services to smaller banks, credit unions, and corporate clients. Zelle resellers include Fiserv Inc., Bank of NY Mellon Corp., and Worldpay, a unit of Global Payments Inc.

In 2025, Zelle partnered with Velera, formerly PSCU/Co-op Solutions, to expand access to its network for Minority Deposit Institution credit unions. The partnership provides MDI credit unions with access to real-time payment solutions offered by larger financial institutions.

All told, Velera provides technology to more than 4,000 financial institutions in North America. MDIs are credit unions at which more than 50% of the board, membership, and community served are from minority groups.

Zelle also added Alcarati Inc., a provider of cloud-based money movement and digital payments to financial institutions, as a reseller partner. The deal calls for Alcariti to embed Zelle into its Orbipay Payments Hub to make it easier for community banks and credit unions to integrate Zelle through existing infrastructures.

“Many community banks and credit unions don’t have the infrastructure to easily enable Zelle, which means they often need additional technical support,” the Zelle spokesperson says. “That’s why we’ve expanded partnerships with resellers like Velera and Alacriti to meet institutions where they are and broaden access further. Partnerships with [resellers] give community banks and credit unions the technology and support they need to implement Zelle.”