Reduce Zelle Fraud
Fraud Happens
Bank fraud happens. Zelle now faces public scrutiny regarding its security due to the recent NYT article. First be proud that you are the market leader in your market segment. This is a “job well done” especially due to the fact that you are a late comer to the game behind Venmo, which was acquired by PayPal. Second know that as the market leader you will be targeted more. Third, and most importantly, take corrective actions to enhance the security of your product.
The U/X Idea
Require all banks that use Zelle to notify its users of every transaction.
The User Experience Problem
Bank fraud! No one likes their money being fraudulently taken from them. Dozens of fraudulent transactions have occurred and is now a trending topic which will cause distrust for Zelle.
The U/X Solution
The first step is to require all banks that use Zelle to notify its users of every transaction. Currently not all banks affiliated with Zelle notify their customers regarding Zelle transactions on their accounts. Users with fraudulent activity will have more distrust for Zelle when they find out days or weeks later that their money was stolen. Similarly it may be more difficult to find perpetrators or identify fraudulent patterns if users cannot alert their bank to the fraudulent activity. This will also increase the time a customer gets refunded for the fraudulent activity, assuming the bank refunds for fraudulent Zelle activity as not all do.
The next step is to notify Zelle users about your overall security protocols with information about how to best use Zelle. There should be written steps clearly shown in an email and/or notification with a video containing the same information.
Conclusion
Bank fraud happens and there will always be the need to reassess the U/X experience to combat new types of fraud - thieves get quite creative! As a first step Zelle should require all banks to notify users when a transaction occurs on their account using Zelle. This will help with a more consistent user experience across platforms, add to the integrity of the product, and reduce the time it takes for a user to alert their bank of fraudulent activity which may help catch the thief and help the user recover their funds faster.
Overall a great product and best of luck!
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