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.