Early Warning Services has launched its Paze digital wallet in South Carolina, and has begun the launch process in Arizona, according to EWS Managing Director James Anderson. 

“We are live, but we're not very active yet,” Anderson said in an interview last Thursday. Paze was launched in Arizona this month, a spokesperson for the company said, declining to say when the service launched in South Carolina.

Scottsdale, Arizona-based EWS is backed by seven large U.S. banks and also operates the payment platform Zelle, which competes with peer-to-peer payment apps, such as PayPal-owned Venmo and Block-owned Cash App.

Paze will be squarely focused on the U.S., Anderson said. “We have no aspirations beyond the 50 states.” And the digital wallet will remain purely focused on e-commerce for now. Contactless payments, like the kind possible with Apple’s and Google’s digital wallets, are “not on our roadmap,” Anderson said.

With Paze, EWS is targeting consumers who barely, or never, use other digital wallets, such as Apple Wallet and Google Wallet, to pay for things online, Anderson said.

“In terms of a primary demographic, it's people who are active online, but have either not made a choice of having a solution to make their payments easier, or they've kind of loosely affiliated to a solution,” Anderson said. “There's quite a few people who are still using guest checkout.”

Anderson described Paze’s current users as a mix of EWS employees plus their friends and family. The company is pre-assembling the digital wallets for bank customers to claim if they want, making it a feature of their existing bank account, much like Zelle.

For the nationwide rollout, the process will require EWS to load about 150 million bank customer cards, meaning a full U.S. launch will occur as “more of a ramp up over a few months,” though it will be regionally driven, Anderson said.

The company spokesperson said banks and credit unions will have to pay a fee to have their customers on Paze after an initial free period, but that merchants and consumers will not be charged to use it.

When asked about how EWS will earn revenue from Paze, Anderson said, “we’re really not planning to make money, which sounds kind of crazy, but it’s not our primary objective.” He pointed to metrics such as user engagement and usage as markers for Paze success.

"Our metrics are much more tied to how do we make our owner financial institutions, and all financial institutions, more successful," Anderson said.