Key insights
- Early Warning Services (EWS) is partnering with Citibank to offer its digital wallet, Paze, to Citi credit cardholders. This marks the first partnership with a non-owner bank. While Paze's initial rollout was slow, it aims to gain traction in the digital wallet market. The increased adoption of digital payment solutions could have a slightly positive impact on payment processing companies and consumer finance sectors.
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Financial technology company Early Warning Services is, for the first time, partnering with a non-owner bank to offer its digital wallet Paze to more consumers.
Citibank's credit cardholders will soon have the option of using Paze at participating merchants, EWS announced in a news release Tuesday. Digital wallets store payment methods such as credit and debit cards, letting users quickly settle transactions with their preferred payment method.
"The addition of Citi marks a meaningful step toward the next evolution of digital wallets," Serge Elkiner, Paze general manager, said in the release.
The digital wallet will become available to Citi cardholders “in the coming weeks,” the release said.
Early Warning Services is based in Scottsdale, Arizona, and is owned by seven large banks, including Bank of America, Capital One, JPMorgan Chase, PNC, Truist, US Bancorp and Wells Fargo.
The company also owns and operates the peer-to-peer payment service Zelle.
Roughly 165 million credit and debit cards have been added to Paze, Tuesday's news release said.
The digital wallet and checkout solution launched in 2023, but got off to a sluggish start. It was supposed to be added to 150 million Visa and Mastercard credit cards on day one.
EWS said Paze reached that goal last April and it has partnered with companies like Fiserv in a bid to add more customers.
An Early Warning Services spokesperson did not immediately respond to a message inquiring about the digital wallet's growth, but in the past the company has defended its progress.
“There’s a lot of awareness and we’re starting to build momentum,” a company spokesperson said in November 2024.
Merchants that accept Paze payments include the grocery store chain ShopRite, the jewelry store chain Zales, the beauty products retailer Sephora, the restaurant franchise Whataburger and the video game payment company Xsolla, according to an online merchant directory.
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