Payments sent using Zelle surpassed checks written by Bank of America customers in 2021. The real-time payments platform’s usage was also up 20% in January 2022 over the previous year.

The $3.1 trillion bank saw a 17% increase at $335 million in total payments during January, its second-highest month of spending on record.

Bank of America’s 67 million consumer clients made a record $3.8 trillion in total payments during all of 2021, which was a 24% increase over pre-pandemic levels in 2019. Total payments include credit card, debit card, ACH, wires, bill pay, person-to-person, cash and checks.

The digital payments trend bodes well for the economy, said Mary Hines Droesch, head of consumer and small business products, in a release. “Our clients’ checking and savings deposit balances were also up 15% year over year, growing across all levels of affluence.”

Other January payment trends noted by Bank of America:

• Clients’ aggregate credit and debit card spending reached $65 billion for the month, up 16% YoY;
• Credit card spending grew 28% compared with January 2021 as spending on travel, retail and food strengthened from suppressed levels in early 2021; and
• Payment activity by cash and checks was down 7% year over year, another signal of the shift to digital forms of payment.

Citi’s digital account openings grew 96% in 2021

Citi’s digital account openings grew 96% compared with 2020, the $2.9 trillion bank reported Feb.7.

CitiDirect earned a top online portal ranking in Coalition Greenwich’s 2021 Digital Banking Benchmarking study. The study includes more than 50 evaluation factors and some 1,800 sub-criteria, such as cross-product integration, navigability, online support, education to user administration and fraud prevention. Coalition Greenwich’s evaluation of Citi’s capabilities encompassed its portfolio of integrated digital banking solutions, including the CitiDirect banking platform, the bank said.

In announcing the study, Citi also revealed the growth of its digital account openings, as well as:

• CitiDirect Mobile users grew 69% compared YoY;
• Transaction flows across digital channels via CitiConnect grew 38% compared with the previous year; and
• CitiConnect APIs have experienced more than 1 billion calls to date.

Survey: 33% pulled money from traditional savings to buy crypto

Thirty-three percent of more than 1,000 U.S. adults surveyed during the fourth quarter 2021 have pulled money from traditional savings accounts to buy cryptocurrency, and 25% have transferred money out of their investment accounts, according to a survey released last week from blockchain infrastructure platform provider Paxos and research firm Pollfish.

Respondents owned both crypto and a primary banking account. Other findings from the survey include:

• 62% of current crypto holders would take advantage of it if their bank offered a crypto investment functionality;
• 44% had made their first crypto purchase within the past year;
• 34% of crypto holders’ only other investment in the stock market to date is through 401(k) plans or retirement accounts;
• 39% use standard debit cards to deposit U.S. dollars into their crypto wallet – the most common means for doing so;
• 56% are very likely to buy or sell crypto in the next two years;
• 35% have traded crypto once or twice per month over the past year; and
• 23% have traded crypto at least once per week.

This creates a lucrative opportunity for financial institutions, Walter Hessert, head of strategy at Paxos, said in the release.

“Our survey shows people want to engage with this ecosystem through their existing service providers,” he said. “That’s a massive opportunity for institutions, fintechs and the financial system as a whole.”

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