Person-to-person money movement has been one of the most transformative shifts in modern banking. Over the last two decades, it’s evolved from a convenient add-on to a core expectation of every digital banking experience. What began as a simple way to move money between friends now shapes how consumers and businesses engage with their financial institutions every day.
The evolution hasn’t been linear. It has been marked by innovation, disruption, and, more recently, a renewed focus on bringing payments back into the banking ecosystem. Let’s take a walk through where P2P has been and where it’s going.
The 2000s – P2P Launches
In the early 2000s, digital payments were just taking shape. PayPal introduced a new way to send and receive money by email, laying the groundwork for what would become the P2P era. Ebay sellers discovered this and began leveraging it as a preferred payment method due to the ease of use vs. checks and money orders. As mobile phones evolved into smartphones, money movement began to follow us everywhere.
By the end of the decade, solutions like Venmo (2009), Popmoney (2010), and ClearXChange (2010) entered the market, each with the same goal: to make it easy to transfer money digitally between people. What they hadn’t solved yet was how to build a sustainable revenue around what felt like “free” money movement. Still, the foundation was set for what came next.
The 2010s – P2P Goes Mainstream
By 2010, digital banking was in full swing. You could deposit your checks from anywhere with a smartphone, and consumers were starting to expect the same simplicity when paying each other. Sending friends money was still dominated by either handing them cash in person, sending them a check, or setting them up on your bill pay center to outsource the check-writing process to your bank. Venmo helped bring P2P into pop culture with its social interface, while ClearXChange (which later became Zelle®) was better known for its bank integration. When the Zelle Network® launched in 2017, it gave financial institutions a unified way to deliver fast payments inside their own channels.
That same year, The Clearing House launched the RTP® network, the first new U.S. payments rail in more than 40 years. It provided instant clearing and settlement between financial institutions, setting the standard for real-time capabilities that would later shape both consumer and business payment expectations. The RTP network started with a small group of early adopters, but it established the foundation for what would become a nationwide push toward instant payments.
2020-2024: P2P Matures
Whether through Zelle®, Cash App, or Venmo, nearly every consumer engaged in digital payments between 2020 and 2024. But this growth also revealed a critical challenge for banks and credit unions: keeping those transactions within their ecosystem.
Zelle® surpassed $1 trillion in annual payments in 2024, processing 3.6 billion transactions and reaching 151 million enrolled users, up 25% year over year.¹ At the same time, fintech wallets continued to pull deposits away from traditional institutions—more than $3 trillion shifted to fintechs over the last five years.²
For financial institutions, the goal became clear: maintain visibility and engagement by keeping payments local. According to Curinos, new Zelle® users make 3.2 more debit card transactions per month and generate $25 more in annual revenue compared to non-users.³
P2P isn’t just for friends and family anymore. Small and mid-sized businesses are now using the same real-time rails to manage payments, accept funds, and pay vendors. Datos Insights (2025) found that one-third of U.S. businesses with more than $20 million in revenue already use Zelle® for disbursements, and 47% have switched banks to gain access to faster payments.⁴
For small businesses, that convenience translates to cash flow and customer satisfaction. For banks and credit unions, it’s another way to strengthen relationships and drive digital engagement—proving that P2P isn’t just about convenience; it’s about competitiveness.
2025 and Beyond – Embedded P2P Takes Center Stage
In 2025, P2P crossed the threshold from standalone app to embedded banking utility. In March, Zelle® retired its standalone mobile app. From that point on, users could access Zelle® through their bank or credit union’s digital channels. The impact was far-reaching: P2P officially became part of the banking experience, not a separate one.
Today, more than 2,300 financial institutions, 95% of them community banks and credit unions, offer Zelle®.⁵ It’s now the second most common reason consumers open their mobile banking app, just behind checking balances.⁶
Alongside Zelle®, two other real-time payment rails have quickly gained traction: the RTP network and FedNow® Service. The Federal Reserve launched the FedNow Service in July 2023, giving U.S. financial institutions of all sizes a direct path to 24/7 instant clearing and settlement. Together, the two networks now reach more than 60% of U.S. demand deposit accounts. RTP surpassed 1 billion transactions7 in early 2025, while FedNow counts more than 700 participating institutions8 in less than two years after launch.
For financial institutions, these instant payment rails complement P2P solutions like Zelle®, serving broader use cases such as payroll, bill pay, account-to-account transfers, and disbursements. What began as a consumer convenience has evolved into an interconnected real-time payments ecosystem, driving a redefinition of speed, reach, and customer expectation across all payment types.
P2P payments have come a long way—from a digital experiment to one of the most powerful engagement drivers in modern banking. What started as a way to split a dinner bill now defines how consumers and businesses interact with their financial institutions.
The FIs that continue to succeed will be those that see P2P as more than a product. They leverage it as a strategic tool for engagement, growth, and connection in an always-on, instant world.
Alacriti’s centralized payment platform, Orbipay Payments Hub, provides innovation opportunities and the ability to make smart routing decisions at the financial institution to meet their individual needs. Financial institutions can take full ownership of their payments and control their evolution with TCH’s RTP® network, the FedNow® Service, Zelle®, Fedwire, ACH, and Visa Direct, all on one cloud-based platform. To speak with an Alacriti payments expert, please contact us at (908) 791-2916 or info@alacriti.com.
Zelle® and the Zelle® related marks are wholly owned by Early Warning Services, LLC and are used herein under license.
Sources:
- Zelle® Press Release, February 2025
- Cornerstone Advisors, Stemming the Deposit Outflow: The $2 Trillion Investing Opportunity for Banks and Credit Unions
- Curinos, Zelle® Usage Drives Customer Engagement, December 2022
- Datos Insights, Instant Payments & Zelle, September 2025
- Early Warning Services, Zelle CMA Sunset Brief, Q1 2025
- Nonfiction x Zelle, 2024 Quantitative Consumer Study
- The Clearing House: RTP® Network Doubles Volume in 18 Months, Surpassing 1 Billion Transactions and Driving U.S. Payment Innovation
- Federal Reserve: FedNow® Service progress update: Two years of growth, innovation
