NEW YORK (AP) — Peer-to-peer payment service Zelle will expand to India later this year, the payment service's first international market since the payment service launched nearly a decade ago.
Early Warning Services, the operator of the Zelle network, said it was choosing India as a “natural starting point” for its international expansion. Roughly a third of all remittances that are sent to India each year come from the United States, according to India's central bank.
Early Warning Services expects to expand to other international markets. Along with the India announcement, the company said it will be creating its own U.S. dollar-backed stable coin known as ZelleUSD that will service a backbone for other international markets.
Since launching nine years ago, Zelle has become one of the more popular ways for Americans to send money to others directly from their bank accounts. Consumers and small businesses sent more than $1.2 trillion through Zelle in 2025, according to Early Warning Services.
But Zelle's growth trajectory has not been entirely smooth. The payment network has faced years of scrutiny over fraud and unauthorized transfers, including a lawsuit filed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in December 2024. That lawsuit was dropped with prejudice in March 2025 after the Trump Administration took over the bureau and largely dropped all enforcement actions against any financial companies.
A subsequent lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James with similar allegations is now winding its way through the New York court system.
EWS is jointly owned by seven of the nation's largest banks, including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo.
Workers at a construction site are silhouetted against the evening sky filled with pre-monsoon rain clouds in Kochi, southern Kerala state, India, Tuesday, June 2, 2026. (AP Photo/ R S Iyer)
FILE - Options to use the Zelle payments network are seen on a mobile banking app in New York, Dec. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Patrick Sison, File)
English cricket is back in a mess.
Having just dealt with a shambolic Ashes tour featuring reports of excessive drinking and unprofessionalism, the England and Wales Cricket Board is fighting another fire just one week into the international summer.
This time, the captain is at the heart of it all.
Ben Stokes, for so long the face of the English game, has been dropped from the test team after breaking a curfew he helped to draw up himself by going on a night out with teammate Gus Atkinson to celebrate a victory over New Zealand in the first match of the series on Sunday.
Stokes’ precise involvement in what the ECB is describing as an “incident” after midnight in a London nightclub isn't fully clear.
What is clear, however, is that his presence there has left England's leadership group in another sticky situation — just when they were looking to show they had learnt their lesson.
“All the things that we have been working on ... it feels like we’ve just been smashed in the face," England director of cricket Rob Key told the BBC on Thursday.
This summer was supposed to be a reset for England after an Ashes tour Down Under that was humiliating on and off the field.
Not only did England lose 4-1, the team's players came under scrutiny for their lack of professionalism — notably because of its apparent drinking culture.
A video emerged appearing to show Ben Duckett disorientated and unable to remember how to get back to the hotel. Another video on social media showed batter Jacob Bethell dancing in a club.
England was 2-0 down in the series by then. When the embarrassing tour was over, Harry Brook apologized for clashing with a nightclub bouncer during a short tour of New Zealand that preceded the Ashes. Brook, England's test vice captain and skipper of the ODI and T20 teams, was hit by the bouncer after being denied entry to the club.
No one from the leadership team — Stokes, Key and coach Brendon McCullum — lost their jobs following the post-Ashes review, with ECB chief executive Richard Gould saying: “I’ve seen the driving ambition and determination we’re lucky enough to have within our leadership group to take the lessons from the Ashes."
One of the decisions taken after the Ashes was to reimpose a midnight curfew on players and staff around games that was dropped in 2022. It didn't take long for that to be broken, by the captain of all people.
Stokes said in his post-match news conference after beating New Zealand at Lord's that "I won’t be really happy until I get to share a beer with the boys.”
That was early on Sunday afternoon. It seems he stayed out until after midnight and ended up with Atkinson in a club, where a member of England’s security staff was reportedly struck — and left bloodied and in need of medical attention, according to the BBC — by a rugby player from English club Saracens who was also out that night.
The ECB said in a statement on Monday that it was “investigating a breach of team protocols” and Stokes and Atkinson “were present at a nightclub in the early hours of Monday morning when an incident took place.”
On Wednesday, they were both dropped for the second test, amid reports that Stokes was weighing up his test future — though Key said Stokes "has not intimated that to me.”
“There is so much work that Ben and myself have put in, so much time spent on the phone," Key said. “I think the overriding thing was shock that it was Ben involved in this.”
Key added in the BBC interview that the ECB was considering imposing an alcohol ban on the England team.
For starters, without its inspirational captain.
England has chosen not to give the captaincy to Brook — just imagine the line of questioning in his first news conference as the team leader, given his recent disciplinary history — and instead reverted back to Joe Root, a safe pair of hands in many senses.
Root was the predecessor to Stokes as captain, giving up the honor in 2022 after a record 64 tests in charge. The captaincy was weighing on Root — England’s record test run-scorer — and the team was coming off winning just one of its previous 17 test matches for the country’s worst run since the 1980s.
However, in a crisis, Root is a solid choice to lean on. The ECB stressed he was “interim captain,” suggesting this wouldn't be a long-term solution.
It also leaves England without a bowler in Atkinson who cleaned up New Zealand's second innings with figures of 5-30 to clinch a hard-earned victory. Jofra Archer comes into the squad in his place having missed the first test while he was recuperating in Barbados after the Indian Premier League.
That's the big question now.
A slew of former England captains — Michael Vaughan, Michael Atherton, Nasser Hussain — have all said what the 35-year-old Stokes has done is misguided but shouldn't be a sackable offense, and that they hope he stays on in the role.
There is a home Ashes series in 2027, which Stokes may view as a chance at redemption after last winter. It also gives him a year to regain some batting form after a dip over the past couple of years that has seen him make one century and two fifties in 23 test innings since November 2024.
Stokes is an England great, the key player in the country’s 50-over and T20 World Cup-winning teams from 2019 and 2022, and someone with 121 tests to his name.
Key, who said it had “obviously been a traumatic time” for Stokes, offered no guarantees he would keep the captaincy.
Hussain believes Stokes will be asking himself if he has any more to give.
“I also have the feeling,” Hussain said on the Sky Sports Cricket Podcast, “that in a few years' time, if you look back and say, ‘Why did Ben Stokes retire from the game of cricket? Why did one of our great leaders and captains and players retire? Because he broke a curfew that he himself set?’ I think that would be sad and not the right way to go out.”
AP cricket: https://apnews.com/hub/cricket
England's Joe Root leaves the pitch after losing his wicket during the second day of the test match between England and New Zealand at Lord's cricket ground in London, Friday, June 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
FILE -England coach Brendon McCullum hits the ball to England fielders during a practice session ahead of the fifth and final Ashes cricket test between England and Australia in Sydney, Australia, Jan. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Baker, File)
England's Gus Atkinson, right, celebrates with captain Ben Stokes after bowling out New Zealand's Matt Henry to win the Test match between England and New Zealand at Lord's cricket ground in London, Sunday, June 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
England's Ben Stokes reacts as he leaves the field after their win in the Test match against New Zealand at Lord's cricket ground in London, Sunday, June 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
