After users started jumping to Down Detector to report Zelle being down on Friday, the popular peer-to-peer payment platform is back up and running for the most part. The issues spread through several banks, causing them to see spikes on the outage reporting website, even though most of their services are up and running. This is because Zelle is often integrated directly into online banking, making it seem like the bank itself is down.
A Zelle spokesperson later revealed the issue stemmed from an internal error from Fiserv, which acts as a third-party provider of payment infrastructure for banks in service of online transactions. At around 1:30 p.m. ET, Fiserv said it had figured out the problem and instituted a fix, which seems to be working as DownDetector outage reports are hovering at 100 after peaking at around 1,000 on Friday.
We've been monitoring Zelle throughout the outage and will keep you posted as we learn more. If all these headaches have you looking for alternatives to Zelle, we've got you covered there as well.
Zelle outage — live updates
A steady outage
The Zelle outage has been going on for most of the day, but it never hit the fever pitch that some other outages reach. It peaked at 988 reports and has remained steady in the 800 range for the last few hours. A decent number of users still have issues with a service designed for sending money.
Whether it's sending rent or other payments, Zelle is one of those services that needs to work, and the fact that it isn't is concerning.
Other banks showing outages
Because of Zelle's integration into online banking, it seems like the banks themselves are actually down when they're not. For most of the reports at Bank of America, Ally, Old National Bank, Navy Federal and others, Zelle appears to be the root of the problem.
If you can't send money through your online banking like you usually would, make sure it's actually the bank that's having problems and not Zelle.
Zelle confirms outage
CNN spoke to Zelle about the outage and received confirmation that something is wrong and the company is working on it.
“We are aware that certain Zelle users at some financial institutions are not able to use Zelle at this time,” Zelle said to the publication . “We are working diligently with our partners to resolve this matter as soon as we can. Zelle users may see transactions marked as ‘payment pending’ in the meantime.”
While the company didn't offer specific banks that are having issues, the Down Detector report spikes for Bank of America and Ally lead us to believe those are the two currently being hit the hardest.
User comments on Bank of America
A few users have commented on the Down Detector page for Bank of America with the specifc issue they're having. As expected, they're reporting issues with sending money, which is where Zelle comes into play.
Zelle alternatives
While many users rely on Zelle to send money because it's baked right into their online banking experience, there are plenty of other ways to send money. If you need to send cash right now and can't wait until the Zelle outage is resolved, here are some other apps to try:
That's not an exhaustive list, as there are other, smaller Zelle alternatives, but at least one of those should do the job for you to get your rent or any other payments sent until Zelle is back.
On a decline...
While it's certainly not over, the numbers are trending downward right now, with the Down Detector reports hovering around 700 right now.
The cause
Zelle told CNN that payments giant Fiserv, which provides services to some banks, is the reason for the outage. Fiserv has yet to comment on the issue.
The up and downs continue
Unsurprisingly, the roller coaster of Zelle outage reports continues to go on. While reports dropped to 700 just a few minutes ago, it's back to around 800 now. That seems to be the pattern we've been stuck with for some time, and it shows no sign of letting up.
Users aren't happy
Lots of people are upset, and with good reason. They feel like their money is aimlessly floating while they wait for it to reach their destination (or themselves).
"BoA to Schwab is not working. I was sent my paycheck and needed it asap to buy a ticket for an emergency overseas flight, and the money has not come thru yet. It was sent about an hour ago," one user posted on Down Detector.
"This is ridiculous Zelle is still down.. I've been trying since 8am smh," said another.
"It's 1:30 in the afternoon and I still can't access Zelle. I've been trying since 6am. What's taking so long????," a third commenter added.
We see a lot of outages, but few have the widespread effect of Zelle, as people are mainly concerned about their money getting where it needs to go. We expect money to reach the expected destinations once things are resolved (or be returned to the original sender).
Still no comment from Fiserv
While Zelle is the front-facing service that's seeing a significant outage, the root cause has been identifies as Fiserv. The company still hasn't commented on the outage, so we're currently left in the dark.
Rising again
Reports have spiked again, getting up to as high as 876 on Down Detector. While there isn't much new to report, this Zelle outage shows no signs of ending anytime soon and it's leading to a lot of frustrated users with money floating around.
No big changes
Unfortunately, not much has changed and we're still looking at an outage for Zelle with hundreds of users jumping onto Down Detector reporting outages.
As always we'll keep you updated, but right now, there's nothing new to report.
Add Discover to the list
For the most part, people trying to send money from their bank to others via Zelle have reported issues. For the most part those spikes have been smaller than the ongoing Zelle one.
Discover just had a little spike, but it looks like it's already gone down a bit.
Fiserv claims it fixed internal issue
A Fiserv spokesperson told our colleagues at TechRadar that the company has solved an internal issue that disrupted service.
Earlier today, we experienced an internal issue that temporarily disrupted service. The issue has since been resolved, and we are now working to process the backlog. We remain committed to providing reliable service and are taking steps to prevent similar occurrences in the future," they said.
They did not share what the issue is but that Fiserv is processing the backlog, which may take some time. The company also assured our colleagues that it is working to prevent this issue going forward.
Despite claimed fix, service return up in the air
Across the internet in places like Reddit we're seeing customers of various banks reporting that their banks have told them they don't know when service will be totally restored.
As indicated earlier, it wasn't clear from FiServ how long it would take to get things back standard.
On Down Detector, Zelle is still holding steady around 700 ongoing reports.
At least 30 banks suffered outages
At one point today, nearly 30 banks were seeing reports of outages on Down Detector, most likely related to the FiServ issue and Zelle processing.
As of this writing, 2:15 pm Pacific, the Zelle outage appears to be going down, but we'll keep an eye on it.
Zelle reports slowing going down
After over 12 hours of outage, it appears the Zelle reports on Down Detector are finally going down.
As of this post, it's sitting around 450 reports, or a little less than half of the height.
Things appear to be getting back to normal.
Zelle on Twitter
Hi, thank you for reaching out to us and we apologize for the issues you are experiencing. We are aware of a current issue and it has been resolved. For more question regarding payments, we recommend reaching out to your bank.May 2, 2025
If the Zelle Support account on X is anything to go by, people are not happy with complaints of disappearing money, paychecks not coming through and questions about the service being down.
For the last 20 minutes or so the account has been responding with this message:
"Hello, thank you for reaching out to Zelle Support. The issue with payment processing has been resolved. If you have a payment that is still in pending, please send us a DM with your full name, phone number, and email."
A more recent variation in the last few minutes, a slightly alter message has this line at the end, "For more question regarding payments, we recommend reaching out to your bank."
From what we can tell, payments that aren't going through are in a sort of limbo state as presumably FiServ gets through its backlog.
Spiking again
The roller coaster ride of missing payments on Zelle took another turn around 4 p.m. Pacific as outage reports started creeping back up.
There was downturn to under 450 and it seemed the outage reports were going away, but since about 2:45 p.m. the reports have been steadily rising and now sit closer to 660 on Down Detector.
On various social media sites we are still seeing people complaining about or at Zelle accounts that it's still not working.
Where we stand currently
It is 5 p.m. Pacific and the issues affecting Zelle and institutes ranging from credit unions to nation wide banks are still ongoing.
Outage reports on service trackers like Down Detector and social media sites have largely subsided for most banks but Zelle has been steadily seeing reports for since at least 3 a.m., more than 12 hours of problems with no sign of stopping.
Early today, it was revealed that the problems were potentially caused by an internal error at a company called Fiserv which acts as a third-party provider of payment infrastructure for banks in service of online transactions.
Around 1:30 p.m., Fiserv claimed to have discovered the problem in their system and had instituted a fix.
After that initial report, it appeared that things were trending towards stability as reports and complaints steadily declined.
However, within the last hour things began to spike again.
From what we can tell, the main issue here is banks or credit unions that utilize Fiserv for sending online and ACH payments via services like Zelle.
So, if you send a payment from a bank that doesn't use Fiserv to one that does, your money isn't transferring. The same goes for transfers between two banks that are both on Fiserv's system.
The major banks like Bank of America or Wells Fargo — which also partially own Zelle — do not appear to use Fiserv as part of their infrastructure, so those banks should not be affected by the outage.
Tom's Guide has reached out to both Zelle and Fiserv for comment and will update if we receive a response from either company.
Zelle is back online for many
The Zelle outage lasted for most of Friday, with reports peaking at several points throughout the afternoon. As of Saturday morning, reports have dropped to around 100 on DownDetector. However, some users still seem to be having issues, and it's concerning to see reports slowly climbing in the last few hours, albeit measured in the tens instead of the hundreds as we saw yesterday.
With Zelle being such an essential service for sending rent and other payments, any issues are extremely frustrating. But it looks like we may be on the tail end of this thing. Just keep your fingers crossed that we don't see another spike.
Zelle says it's 'working diligently' to resolve the matter
Reports of Zelle outages continue to creep up on DownDetector, from around a few dozen at 5 a.m. ET to around 150 as of 10 a.m. ET. It's nowhere near yesterday's peak, but concerning nonetheless.
A Zelle spokeperson shared with us the following statement about Friday's widespread outages: "We are aware that certain Zelle users at some financial institutions are not able to use Zelle at this time. This situation involves an independent third-party that provides services to particular financial institutions. We are working diligently with our partners to resolve this matter as soon as we can. Zelle users may see transactions marked as ‘payment pending’ in the meantime. We will share updates as more information becomes available.”
Another spike overnight
Looks like we're not out of the woods yet. Outage reports for Zelle have been all over the place in the last 24 hours. Reports peaked at around 150 at 10 a.m. ET before trickling down and spiking back up again around 11 p.m. ET.
Granted, it's nowhere near the peaks we saw on Friday, but it's clear Zelle is still working diligently behind the scenes to roll out a fix.
