Comment by ISO-morphism

In the US, Zelle vs. Venmo is comparable to debit card vs. credit card. With Zelle/debit, you're basically mailing cash - it might get lost in transit, your money is gone right away. With Venmo/credit, there's a middleman with a big pile of cash that assumes the risk of money being in-flight, and usually eats fraud/errors as a cost of doing business in exchange for selling data about your spending to advertisers.