WASHINGTON, June 30 – Early Warning Services, LLC., a trusted national leader in the payments industry, submitted a comment letter today responding to the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Request for Information regarding the transition to electronic payments for all federal disbursements and receipts.
Early Warning is the company behind Zelle®, the go-to peer-to-peer payment network. In 2024, American consumers and small businesses used Zelle to send over $1 trillion.
“Early Warning is known for delivering fast, secure and reliable payments for Americans and we strongly support the move away from paper checks,” said Denise Leonhard, general manager of Zelle. “Our payments infrastructure is deeply integrated within the banking system, widely available and can scale quickly, making us uniquely positioned to support Treasury’s push to modernize government disbursements.”
Early Warning’s comment letter detailed the critical benefits it can provide Treasury through Zelle, including:
- Scale: Zelle reaches more than 150 million enrolled user accounts, which is equal to more than the combined population of California, Texas and Florida.
- Security: Zelle removes a risk vector that paper checks present. There is no need to collect or store sensitive account and routing information because Zelle is already embedded within U.S. bank accounts.
- Safe: Today, more than 99.95 percent of all Zelle transactions are completed without any report of scam or fraud. Treasury checks are 16 times more likely to be reported lost or stolen, returned undeliverable, or altered than digital payments.
- Speed: Reliance on paper checks slows access to funds and burdens recipients, especially those with limited mobility or transportation. With disbursements using Zelle, funds can be delivered in minutes to an enrolled recipient’s verified bank account.
Early Warning has also engaged Treasury on the President’s Executive Order 14249 related to strengthening the government’s capabilities to identify improper payments and prevent fraud within the U.S. General Fund. The company started working with Treasury in 2021, partnering with the agency to leverage its Verify Account solution to prevent an estimated 179,000 improper payments from Economic Impact Payment, Advance Child Tax Credit and Federal Emergency Management (FEMA) disbursements totaling $209.5 million in fraud prevention. In 2024, Early Warning helped the U.S. financial sector screen $10.8 trillion in payments and stop $3 billion in potential fraud.
For more than 35 years, Early Warning has been a cutting-edge fraud prevention and technology partner to thousands of financial institutions, including community banks, credit unions, government agencies and private sector clients across the country. The company’s risk and fraud prevention solutions help protect American consumers and small businesses, screening millions of transactions daily using advanced, data-driven technology to help pinpoint potentially high-risk behavior within the U.S. banking sector.