*By Conor White* Digital payment service Zelle is expected to grow its user base by 73 percent in 2018, and overtake rival Venmo in the process, according to a new forecast from eMarketer. But the growth has little to do with user preferences or word of mouth ー rather, it's because Zelle is readily available inside the apps of more than 30 U.S. banks. With such wide availability, though, comes the risk of fraud. "Any financial product is confronted with these kinds of fraud issues," explained Ravi Loganathan, head of business intelligence at Early Warning Services, the company that created the Zelle app. "On the fraud side, we are well below any industry benchmarks out there." But according to an April report by the New York Times, Zelle is especially vulnerable thanks to aspects of its design: all someone needs is a phone number or email address, and the user is not always notified when money is transferred into or out of an account. In an interview Wednesday on Cheddar, Loganathan insisted Early Warning Services is fixing the loopholes being exploited by hackers. "What we are doing is working actively with the financial institutions to strengthen and to do the education and training that is needed for consumers to better understand how to use the service and then how to also detect fraudsters." The improvements come at a crucial time. According to a new study from Zelle, 75 percent of millennials have used a digital peer-to-peer payment service at least once, and 49 percent use one weekly. For the full segment, [click here.](https://cheddar.com/videos/zelle-examines-consumer-payment-tech-and-behavior)

Share:
More In Technology
Klarna shares jump 30% on Wall Street debut
Swedish buy now, pay later company Klarna is making its highly anticipated public debut on the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday, the latest in a run of high-profile initial public offerings this year. The offering priced at $40 Tuesday, above the forecasted range of $35 to $37 a share, valuing the company at more than $15 billion. The valuation easily makes Klarna one of the biggest IPOs so far in 2025, which has been one of the busier years for companies going public. Other popular IPOs so far this year include the design software company Figma and Circle Internet Group, which issues the USDC stablecoin..
Musk loses crown as world’s richest to software giant Larry Ellison
Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison wrested the title of the world’s richest man from longtime holder Elon Musk early Wednesday as stock in his software giant rocketed more than a third in a stunning few minutes of trading. That is according to wealth tracker Bloomberg. A college dropout, the 81-year-old Ellison is now worth $393 billion, Bloomberg says, several billion more than Musk, who had been the world’s richest for four years. The switch in the ranking came after a blockbuster earnings report from Oracle. Forbes still has Musk as the richest, however, valuing his private businesses much higher.
Load More