New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit Wednesday against Early Warning Services, or EWS, alleging the parent company of Zelle failed to implement certain safeguards, causing "catastrophic harm to millions of consumers" and allowing fraudsters to steal more than $1 billion from 2017 to 2023.

EWS, which is co-owned by Bank of America, Capital One, JPMorgan Chase, PNC Bank, Truist, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo, launched the Zelle app in 2017. At its debut, Zelle said the digital payment network would be a "faster, safer way" for people to send and receive payments "within the security of their financial institution," according to the company.

As of 2024, the app has 151 million users, according to Zelle's website .

The push to launch Zelle led to design oversigh

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