Zelle was built to preempt FedNow. The banks saw what was coming and wanted to own instant payments.

https://www.frbservices.org/financial-services/fednow/about....

> Zelle popped up later and somehow has plenty of users,

At least for me, Zelle is something I can do in my bank app, so I don't need to work with anything I wasn't already using.

It feels a lot easier to use than Venmo, but I dunno. It's one of like 7 options I have to transfer in the bank app.

what's the problem with zelle? it works in my bank app, it's fast, no fees, it's really easy to use