I would imagine — having never actually done either — that naming a company is like naming a baby: you want a name that stays true to your goals and values, quickly evokes a positive response from others, and carries the internal potential to rule supreme over all of the other kids on the block—whether that block is the playground or Wall Street.
Thus, re-branding a company or a service is a serious tactical move, one most recently undertaken by Early Warning, who confirmed to the Wall Street Journal that it will be changing the name of its P2P lending network, clearXchange, to Zelle.
“A certain customer base is not interested in logging into a bank site to do the simple action of sending a payment to a friend,” said Levvel Payments Lead Scott Harkey, adding that customers of banks partnered with the clearXchange network may not even know they can use it through their banks’ tools. “The new brand solves both of these problems by creating a similar experience across all participant banks, as well as a consumer-facing brand and app that makes the payment experience as simple as that of Venmo or Square Cash.”
Whether the re-brand will actually lead to the slaying of Venmo, as headlined by others, depends on the convergence of multiple factors, with consumer response weighing heavily among them.
Despite not being a corporate brand and having only recently been placed among Early Warning’s offerings earlier in the year, clearXchange is well known in the P2P payments space, and is tied to networks run by both Visa and MasterCard as well as banks including JPMorgan Chase, which does make it a worthy challenger to the Venmo service.
According to Early Warning, who dispelled rumors that the change is going to occur this October—it will take place sometime in the first half of next year, says the company, though its website ZellePay is already active—the name “is meant to be consumer-facing and approachable. It invokes speed, agility, and elegance.”
All traits shared by both the graceful gazelle, the best girl ever (as Urban Dictionary defines Zelle) and now, potentially, by the world’s top P2P lending service. So far, Zelle is keeping pretty interesting company.
To learn more about P2P payments, join us at Bank Innovation Israel in November. Register here.