Hacker News Reader

Comment by chatmasta | Hacker News Reader

Venmo has pretty strong network effects, to the point that its users use “Venmo” as a verb. That will be tough to overcome.

View on HN

I use both Venmo and Zelle (through BOA). Zelle gets used by me for "real" transfers that are recurring or large one-offs. The large one-offs I still confirm in advance, because people can have multiple bank accounts and not know where their email/phone is linked. (I think it's the last one setup).

For anything small or group-related, I use Venmo. Largely because everyone (that I've ever exchanged $ with) in my social group uses it, and it's quick and easy. Examples include: food splitting, having one person buy event tickets and paying them back, airbnb/party costs, and fantasy football due collection.

So I agree, Venmo is going to be tough to overcome, I don't see anyone in my group switching to Zelle anytime soon. Zelle would have to do a lot of marketing to even get people to understand that they can do it. I was skeptical the first time I sent money with Zelle and the only reason I tried it was because BoA replaced their transfers with it.

Zelle is usable out of the box with Chase and Bank of America in the respective banks apps (and I'm guessing other participating banks) it's kind of a paypal for banks that just works.

That may be true, but it doesn’t mean customers are going to use it. The fact that millions of 20-30 year olds in the USA tell each other “Venmo me” is quite a bit of inertia to overcome.

Then again, perhaps Zelle will capture the non 20-30 demographic, which is presumably quite large. Most 20-30 year olds have both their banking app(s) and Venmo installed, whereas many in the 30+ demographic have only their banking app.

In the 30+ demographic, Zelle is a new entrant to the “peer-to-peer payments” market, and has a first-mover advantage. Since this demographic is not as intimately familiar with p2p payments as the 20-30 demographic, Zelle has the opportunity to concept of peer-to-peer payments. That is, Zelle has a clear playing field in the battle for the “tipping-point” mindshare required to solidify its first-mover advantage in certain markets.

It would be interesting to map the “real” human social graph, and then overlay app usage onto it.

When we found out about Zelle (which our banks advertise) we switched to it immediately (me and my fiancée) it involved no effort on our part, just maybe telling them what our email was so other people can send us money by email. The rest was handled by our banks. If venmo can be that frictionless then I can see them taking over, but I wont bother installing venmo or giving it a shot now. I'm more likely to paypal someone funds if they don't have Zelle or Google Wallet.

I guess I fall somewhere in the 20-30 market though.

Venmo doesn't have the capabilities of a checking account, which most adults need and Venmo is unlikely to offer (direct deposit, bill pay, etc).

I didn't read the previous comment as a suggestion that they were looking to Venmo as an alternative to a checking account, but rather as a purse where money goes temporarily until it ends up at the final destination: said checking account (or another user or service that takes payments from venmo). That's how I and many services I use-like the furniture movers I paid a few weeks back-the App

Or have I misunderstood something, perhaps?

My thesis is Venmo is a feature, not a product. Real banks will eventually replace the need for it (technically, they already have; the UX needs some catching up).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com