Interesting discussion. My take on this: if there’s no downside as a seller to accepting alternative methods of payment, such as Zelle, then why not do it. As a buyer, if you’d hand someone cash for a coin (say, at a show), then Zelle seems like a great solution that, if widely used, would eliminate the need to carry relatively large amounts of cash around. It does increase the attack surface of your linked bank account by providing another online access point (in addition to your bank’s normal online banking functionality), but the actual risk depends on what Zelle’s policy On fraud is. In any case, with a secure password, the risk is no more than that one accepts in having any other online account linked to a bank account. If I ever decide to rent a table at a show, I’m going to have a Square terminal and some ability to accept Zelle and PayPal, for sure.
