Dive Brief:
- Fintech Early Warning Services is, for the first time, partnering with a non-owner bank to offer its digital wallet Paze to more consumers.
- Citi's credit cardholders will soon have the option of using Paze at participating merchants, EWS announced in a news release Tuesday. Digital wallets store payment methods such as credit and debit cards, letting users quickly settle transactions with their preferred payment method.
- "The addition of Citi marks a meaningful step toward the next evolution of digital wallets," Serge Elkiner, Paze general manager, said in the release.
Dive Insight:
The digital wallet will become available to Citi cardholders “in the coming weeks,” the release said.
Early Warning Services is based in Scottsdale, Arizona, and is owned by seven large banks: JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, PNC, Truist, U.S. Bank and Capital One.
The company also owns and operates the peer-to-peer payment service Zelle.
Roughly 165 million credit and debit cards have been added to Paze, according to Tuesday's news release.
The digital wallet and checkout solution launched in 2023, but got off to a sluggish start. It was supposed to be added to 150 million Visa and Mastercard credit cards on day one.
EWS said Paze reached that goal last April and it has partnered with companies like Fiserv in a bid to add more customers.
An Early Warning Services spokesperson did not immediately respond to a message inquiring about the digital wallet's growth, but in the past the company has defended its progress.
“There’s a lot of awareness and we’re starting to build momentum,” a company spokesperson said in November 2024.
Merchants that accept Paze payments include grocery store chain ShopRite, jewelry store chain Zales, beauty products retailer Sephora, restaurant franchise Whataburger and video game payment company Xsolla, according to an online merchant directory.
