Paze aims at ‘protectionist’ shoppers who fear digital wallets
Paze is a product of Early Warning Services, a company owned by seven of the largest U.S. banks, including JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo. It operates directly through bank and credit-union mobile apps, requiring no new account creation — customers activate eligible cards their bank has already loaded into the wallet. But the wallet has struggled to gain traction in a market dominated by Apple Pay, Google Pay and PayPal.
“Nobody knows Paze,” Serge Elkiner, who runs it, said. “Like, what is Paze?”
According to an April survey by S&P Global Market Intelligence, less than 1% of consumers said they had used Paze for an online purchase in the previous 90 days. That compares with 41% who said they had used PayPal and 24% who said they had used Apple Pay.
The financial stakes for banks are significant. When a bank’s credit card is used through Apple Pay, Apple collects a fee of about 0.15% of the purchase price. Crone Consulting, a payments-advisory firm, estimated that U.S. card issuers paid Apple at least $750 million in those fees across online and in-app purchases in 2025.
Paze’s alternative is to persuade a demographic that has been reluctant to adopt digital payments. About 70% of consumers under 40 use a digital wallet, compared with just 41% of those over 40, according to J.D. Power. Paze’s internal research has identified a segment its marketers call “protectionists” — consumers mostly over 44, slightly more likely to be female, affluent and, crucially, loyal to their banks.
In interviews and focus groups, Paze found that 72% of these protectionists believed manually typing their credit card number into a website was safer than using a digital wallet. Maryam Khosrowshahi-Paez, Paze’s head of marketing, said that statistic surprised her. She said she quizzed friends outside work and they shared the same belief.
Banks and cybersecurity experts say typing the card number carries more risk because it hands the information to the website, whereas a digital wallet typically does not, the Journal reported.
Elkiner, who previously ran product development for Visa’s global money-movement business and sold his payments company YellowPepper to Visa, joined Paze two years ago to turn the product around. An early investor described him as “a consummate networker.”
Paze launched a promotional campaign in June featuring a cash-back offer: customers could spend $10 with Paze and receive $10 back, up to 10 times. The campaign also included advertisements featuring actresses Elizabeth Banks and Gabrielle Union, a play on “banks and credit unions.”
Lakeitha Elliott, a 49-year-old Portland, Ore., resident, tried Paze after seeing a Facebook post about the promotion. She had received promotional emails from Capital One and Chase before but ignored them. “It wasn’t offering any promotion or deal or anything,” she said.
Elliott has used Paze three times, all at Wendy’s, where she previously typed her card number into the app with each order. She said she plans to keep using Paze.
Paze said activations nearly doubled in the four weeks after the June 15 launch compared with the prior four weeks. The company said it was too early to know how many people continue using the wallet after the promotional credits expire.
The wallet still faces a significant acceptance gap. EBay and Nike, which accept Apple Pay, Google Pay and PayPal, do not appear in Paze’s merchant directory. Richard Crone, chief executive of Crone Consulting, said all new payment types start with merchant acceptance. Eric Hoffman, Early Warning’s chief partnerships officer, said Paze is focusing on signing up coffee shops and other everyday purchase locations.
Looking ahead, the entire checkout-button model may shift as artificial intelligence begins handling purchases. Amazon has tools that track prices and buy when they drop; Walmart lets customers purchase through ChatGPT; PayPal is powering checkout for AI shopping agents.