Zelle, the P2P payments service run by Early Warning Services LLC, reported $39 billion in transaction value for the first quarter of 2019, representing a 54% year-over-year increase in payment value and a 72% YOY increase in payment volume, through 147 million transactions across its network — both all-time quarterly highs for Zelle.

“This past quarter Zelle achieved several milestones towards our goal of nationwide ubiquity,” Lou Anne Alexander, group president of payments solutions at Early Warning, said in a statement emailed to Bank Innovation. “Our core processor partners have achieved tremendous results, signing more than 130 banks and credit unions in Q1.”

Partnerships with core processors are key to Zelle’s growth, said Ravi Loganathan, chief data officer at Early Warning Services. He told Bank Innovation that Zelle was able to simultaneously onboard groups of smaller banks, credit unions and community banks through these partnerships while enabling the core processors to provide clients with P2P capabilities.

In fact, Bank Innovation recently reported that for core processor Fiserv, Zelle transactions totaled more than $400 million for Q4 of last year, representing a growth of 75% YOY. That number is expected to be higher in the coming quarter, given that Fiserv has signed more than 100 new financial institutions to use Zelle’s service through Fiserv’s platform during that period.

Also Read: Fiserv Enjoying Zelle’s Growth While Expecting More

Zelle is currently partnered with other core processors, which include CO-OP Financial Services, Jack Henry and FIS.

Bank Innovation reported in January that Finastra, another core processor technology provider, is in the works of signing an agreement with Zelle later this year. Aside from core processors, Zelle is partnered with larger banks and FIs. Last week, Bank of America reported 58.1 million Zelle transactions valued at $16 billion for Q1, compared to 28.6 million transactions valued at $9 billion in the same quarter last year. BofA currently has 5.4 million active Zelle users and more than 27 million active mobile users.

Currently, Zelle has over 60 FIs live on its network, Loganathan said.

For the full year of 2018, Zelle reported $119 billion in payments on 433 million transactions processed, compared to $75 billion on 247 million transactions in 2017.

PayPal, Zelle’s biggest competitor and the preferred P2P choice for millennials, will report its Q1 numbers later today. Stay tuned for coverage on Bank Innovation.