Zelle was created by Early Warning Services, LLC, a private financial services company co-owned by seven major U.S. banks: Bank of America, Truist, Capital One, JPMorgan Chase, PNC Bank, U.S. Bank, and Wells Fargo

. The service launched in 2017 as the successor to the clearXchange payment service, which was also owned by Early Warning Services

. The original creator of the person-to-person payment network that became Zelle (initially called clearXchange) is Mike Kennedy

. Early Warning Services, founded in 1990, operates Zelle and is headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona

. In summary:

• Zelle was developed and launched by Early Warning Services, LLC.
• Early Warning Services is jointly owned by seven major U.S. banks.
• Mike Kennedy is credited as the creator of the network that evolved into Zelle.

This collaborative bank ownership was intended to create a seamless, bank- integrated peer-to-peer payment system to compete with apps like Venmo and PayPal while keeping transactions within the banking ecosystem