On today's episode, we discuss why Zelle (and person-to-person payment apps) are in hot water, which service most Americans use, and how we'll be paying for things in 2026. "In Other News," we talk about the current state of the cryptocurrency crash and the impact Apple Pay Later will have on the buy now, pay later space. Tune in to the discussion with our analysts Jaime Toplin and Adriana Nunez.

The expansion of Zelle’s bank-backed platform as well as the launch of Chuck may spell trouble for Venmo.

Venmo. Vox. YouGov. Zelle.

Venmo. Visa. Voice of America. Zelle.

Innovation may focus on increasing personalization, like PayPal has done in its app with personalized prompts to show customers features they may like, Venmo senior vice president and general manager Darrell Esch told us. These prompts leverage in-app real estate to highlight navigations and suggest capabilities to try.

Venmo. Visa. Voyager. Wells Fargo. WEX.

Venmo. Visa. Wells Fargo. WePay. Wise.

Amazon customers will be able to checkout with Venmo in 2022, which should drive the app’s revenues.

Amazon is adding Venmo as a payment method to reach younger shoppers: The partnership marks progress in PayPal’s efforts to monetize the mobile app and may pave the way for similar deals.

Venmo. Vision Labs. Waitr. The Wall Street Journal. Worldline.

He added that PayPal and Venmo are working hard to put digital wallets at the center of consumers’ daily financial lives. “It is the heart of what we’re trying to do from an engagement perspective,” he said. Venmo: PayPal will hike instant transfer fees for Venmo users in an effort to generate the app’s maiden profit.

Venmo. Verizon. Vox. Wells Fargo. Williams-Sonoma.

The firm could also embed more social elements into Cash App, like what Venmo offers with its payment feed. Global expansion. Block already lets Cash App users send money between the UK and US, but it may expand the service to other markets, like Spain. Dorsey called out Block’s acquisition of Spanish P2P payment app Verse, saying that Block would use Verse to inform its next moves.

But fraud has become a major issue for Zelle and other P2P payment apps like Venmo and Cash App. A common Zelle scam involves fraudsters posing as bank fraud investigators and then tricking users into funneling cash to them, per the New York Times.

Amazon has also bolstered the payment options available on its website by adding Venmo and buy now, pay later (BNPL) provider Affirm. Opening its walled garden to more third-party partnerships could help Amazon increase sales.

The news: Effective January 1, 2022, payment apps like PayPal, Venmo, and Cash App are required to report users’ business payments that exceed $600 in a calendar year to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), per NBC News.