Zelle, Venmo, PayPal, Square, Apple Pay - there are a ton of companies that all do this same thing in the US because the bank software is terrible and expensive.

I thought stellar was similar to what the parent comment describes, but it’s also not proof of work (which makes need for blockchain unclear).

https://www.stellar.org/

> Zelle, Venmo, PayPal, Square, Apple Pay - there are a ton of companies that all do this same thing in the US because the bank software is terrible and expensive.

For all intents and purposes, Zelle is the bank software, and it’s free. Zelle is backed by a bunch of banks - the majority of US checking accounts have access to use it at no cost.

I just checked out Stellar... sounds really interesting actually, very much in line with what I described (except blockchain - I can't see if it's public (not good) or private (not much point in it then) but I'm open to being convinced otherwise), there's just one problem... how do I even use it?? There's no app, no nothing. Ideally, I'd like something like TransferWise "I'd like to send money to X" just non-profit.

fwiw, Stellar integrates directly with Keybase.¹ I remember they did an airdrop when they launched and deposited ~100$ worth of XLM into every Keybase users' wallet.

Not sure how interesting Keybase is now, but it does allow sending money to other Keybase users directly through chat.²

[1] https://keybase.io/blog/keybase-stellar-launch

[2] https://book.keybase.io/wallet#chat

It's still absurd that you need additional services just to do transfers. I can't understand why an IBAN-like system can't seem to get off the ground in the US.

Zelle is owned by several major banks, and partnered with many other banks and credit unions. It is incorporated into most of their mobile apps and online banking websites.

From a user point of view, it doesn't look like an additional service.

I moved from Europe to US via UK, so I’ve experienced banking systems in Eurozone and GBP.

Zelle doesn’t feel as convenient as regular bank transfers in Europe or UK. Some problems I experienced:

- You have to sign up separately. There’s no guarantee a recipient has enabled it.

- It’s tied to an email address for some reason. (Euro/UK bank transfers just use the regular IBAN.)

- There was a long delay in receiving and sending money when one of the Zelle accounts was new. (My transaction was stuck for at least 24h in a “pending” state.)

- The daily transaction limits are very low. My NYC rent doesn’t fit even in two Zelle payments! (In Europe, the standard limit for an instant SEPA bank transfer is 100k, and it costs nearly nothing.)

For these reasons Zelle feels very unbaked, and doesn’t replace a proper interbank fast payment system like SEPA in Eurozone.

I guess there's no/little money on these when you can sell higher cost alternative solutions.