Zelle is a popular peer-to-peer (P2P) money transfer service. It allows customers of US banks and credit unions to transfer money to other US deposit accounts at a near-instant speed. And on top of that, most don’t have to pay any fees for the service.
As of April 1, 2025, Zelle users can no longer use its standalone app to send or receive money. You can still log in to the app until August 11, 2025, but you can no longer send or receive money with it.
So, what does this mean for users who don’t have access to Zelle in their existing banking app?
If you want to keep using Zelle, you’re out of luck unless you switch to an account that supports Zelle. The service is integrated with over 2,200 banks and credit unions, including popular institutions such as Bank of America, Capital One, Chase, Discover, Fifth Third, SoFi, TD Bank and Wells Fargo.
Zelle discontinued support for its standalone app due to very low usage. In October 2024, Zelle said in an announcement, “With the strong growth of adoption by banks and credit unions, we now see just ~2% of transactions on the standalone app.”
With standalone app usage that low, it makes sense why they’d discontinue the support of it, and only a small percentage of regular Zelle users will be impacted by this change.
Zelle might be popular, but it’s not the ideal money-moving app for everyone. Zelle doesn’t support international transactions and can only be used with US-based deposit accounts, such as checking or savings accounts. This limitation also means you can’t use Zelle to send money via a credit card.
Here are other P2P apps to consider:
The risk with P2P apps doesn’t have much to do with their own security. These apps typically use bank-level encryption to protect your data. However, they don’t offer the same consumer protections as credit cards or some bank transfers, and your balance isn’t likely to be FDIC-insured in the app itself.
But the biggest risk with P2P apps like Zelle is accidentally sending money to the wrong person or getting scammed by someone. Since Zelle transactions are near-instant, you can’t cancel payments after you’ve approved them — so if you send cash to the wrong person, you’re screwed.
To stay safe, double-check recipient details before hitting send and don’t send money to strangers. You can also enable extra security features like multi-factor authentication, Face ID and transaction alerts to keep your account more secure.
Due to low usage, Zelle has discontinued support for its standalone app. While you can still technically open the app until August 2025, you can’t send or receive money with the service unless you have a US bank account with one of its partner institutions.