Citi joins Early Warning’s Paze wallet as banks push deeper into online checkout

Citi joins Early Warning’s Paze wallet as banks push deeper into online checkout

Early Warning Services, the bank-owned fintech behind the Zelle payments network, said Citi will begin offering its Paze digital wallet to eligible cardholders, expanding the bank-backed online checkout solution to millions of additional consumers.

The announcement marks another step in the effort by major U.S. banks to strengthen their position in digital wallets, a market long dominated by technology companies. Paze allows customers to complete online purchases without manually entering card details, instead selecting eligible credit or debit cards stored within the wallet. The system uses tokenization so that merchants never see the consumer’s actual card number.

Eligible Citi cardmembers will be able to activate the wallet through Citi’s website, mobile app or the Paze portal. Once activated, customers can look for the Paze button when shopping online at participating retailers and complete transactions with a few clicks.

“We’re always looking for ways to make payments more convenient and secure for our customers,” said Abhinav Anand, head of value cards, lending and commerce for U.S. consumer cards at Citi. “With Paze, we’re expanding the range of payment options available and bringing our cardmembers another trusted way to check out online.”

Citi joins a growing group of banks and credit unions offering Paze. The wallet is designed to help merchants reduce checkout friction, potentially improving conversion rates and reducing abandoned carts.

Early Warning Services, based in Scottsdale, Arizona, is owned by seven of the nation’s largest banks—Bank of America, Capital One, JPMorgan Chase, PNC Bank, Truist, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo. The company develops payment and risk-management technology used by more than 2,500 financial institutions and is best known as the operator of the Zelle network, a real-time bank-to-bank payment service launched in 2017. Zelle has grown into one of the largest peer-to-peer payment systems in the United States, connecting more than 2,000 banks and credit unions and facilitating hundreds of billions of dollars in transfers annually.

By extending Paze through major card issuers like Citi, Early Warning is positioning banks to compete more directly in the digital wallet space while leveraging consumer trust in traditional financial institutions. Surveys cited by the company indicate that most U.S. consumers value the convenience of digital wallets, while an even larger share say they trust banks more than third-party payment providers to safeguard their financial information.

Early Warning said Paze will be available to eligible Citi customers in the coming weeks as the network continues to expand.

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