Implementing Zelle

The Zelle implementation process with Narmi depends on your institution's core provider:

• Jack Henry cores
• FIS cores

Jack Henry PayCenter 

Jack Henry PayCenter is a payment hub run by Jack Henry that operates as a conduit to Zelle (as well as RTP and, eventually, FedNow).  PayCenter manages most of the user experience and back-office movement of money associated with Zelle for the Financial Institution.  FIs partner with JHA directly for PayCenter and Narmi acts as a third party to support the integration. 

JHA PayCenter works with only the major Jack Henry core banking systems: SilverLake, Symitar Episys, CIF 20/20, or Core Director.  While Narmi may eventually support Zelle for other JHA cores, we do not as of Q3 2024.

Furthermore, while Zelle does have a solution for small business payments, today JHA PayCenter (and therefore, Narmi) only supports Zelle as a consumer-to-consumer solution. 

Below is an overview of JHA PayCenter:

Implementation

If a Financial Institution (FI) on one of the supported Jack Henry cores would like to enable Zelle, the first step is for the FI to contact Jack Henry about enabling JHA PayCenter. Once the FI has committed to enabling PayCenter, there is an approximately 90-day process that follows for installation. This window is not necessarily immediately following the commitment but should be scheduled at a time when all parties: the FI, the JHA team, and Narmi can dedicate capacity. The 90 days is broken down roughly as:

• 30 days of Jack Henry gathering information from the FI
• 30 days of configuration and setup (with Narmi’s support)
• 30 days of training staff and setting rules

Key Steps Needed from the FI

Jack Henry will provide an installation coordinator to support the onboarding to PayCenter and drive the process forward with the FI. While the coordinator will guide the FI toward the steps needed to adopt PayCenter, the Narmi team is educated on Zelle as well and will understand the FI’s requirements so that Narmi can act as a thought partner throughout the project.  

Some critical pieces of information to know:

• The FI is responsible for restricting access to Zelle on a user level to only users for whom it is allowed (e.g. excluding business accounts)—so it is critical that their users are properly segmented in the Narmi Admin Portal and enable Zelle for only the appropriate groups
• Zelle’s network rules significantly limit the amount of customization the FI or third party (Narmi) can make to the Zelle experience. Customizations are limited to font size, font family, and colors
• The FI must indicate if they wish to require a one-time passcode each time money is sent to a recipient
• The FI must indicate if they wish to restrict a user to the email/phone sent during the SSO for the first-time user flow only
• The FI is required to fill out a network application to Zelle and get approved by the Zelle network before going live
• The FI is required to set up different limits for Zelle usage:
  • Amount limits:
    • Transaction limits (suggested $500-$1000)
    • Daily limits (suggested $500-$2000) [payments made since midnight of the current day]
    • Weekly limits (suggested $2000 - $5000) [payments made over the last 7 days]
    • Monthly limits (suggested $5,000 - $10,000) [payments made over the last 30 days]
  • Frequency limits:
    • In addition to the amount limits, PayCenter also requires that the FI set up frequency limits for these transactions
• Limits can be adjusted for individual users by the FI submitting a PayCenter ticket
• FI needs to grant approval to Jack Henry to turn on the license for Faster Payments before a Zelle transaction can work

End User Experience

Zelle has an intuitive UI/UX and is easy for most consumers to use.  Zelle’s UX is hosted by JHA PayCenter and allows for an SSO into the experience. The full UX is documented here, but a few noteworthy items:

• Users must “enroll” in Zelle before using it for the first time with the FI.  Enrollment can be done with either a personal phone number or email address
• Funds can be sent to a user who is already enrolled in Zelle, or a user who has not yet been enrolled.  However, to access the funds, the recipient must enroll in Zelle (via their own FI) within 14 days
• If a recipient does not enroll in Zelle within the 14-day window, the funds will be returned to the sender
• If a recipient’s FI does not have Zelle, they are able to download the “Zelle common app” and enroll with most Visa or Mastercard debit cards

FIS Cores

Please check back soon for FIS Zelle implementation resources.