FAQs

This article contains frequently asked questions about Zelle. For more information on how your customers/members use Zelle in Digital Banking, go to these topics on Zelle.

What is the Zelle common mobile app?

For FIs that don’t use Zelle, Zelle offers a “common mobile app” (sometimes referred to as “CMA”) that allows users to enroll in Zelle with a debit card from a non-participating Zelle FI. Nearly all Visa and Mastercard debit cards are eligible to be used via the Zelle common mobile app, but access to this app is blocked for accounts from FIs that are within the Zelle network already. In other words, a user can only use the Zelle common mobile app if their FI is not on this list.

What happens to users from the FI who have already been enrolled in Zelle via Zelle’s common mobile app?

Zelle forces a waved migration to these users so that all of the FI’s users are eventually moved off of the common mobile app. Zelle batches these migrations and gives users roughly one month between announcing that an FI is live and blocking a user from using the Zelle common mobile app. For example, if an FI were to go live on October 10th, 2022 - this would be announced to Zelle Common Mobile App users in the app on October 19th (at which point they would still be able to use the Zelle app), but they would not be blocked from using the app until November 16th.

What are the requirements for an account to use Zelle?

An account must be a retail (non-business) account, and must contain a valid first name, valid last name, valid address (no special characters), and a unique tax ID (e.g. SSN). Additionally, while it is not validated by Zelle, all users must be 13 years old or older. As indicated earlier, it is the FI’s responsibility to limit Zelle to the appropriate users by creating segments in the Admin Platform.