Kristie Gallagher joined Early Warning Services (EWS) 20 years ago, around the same time the fintech innovator began using its home-grown billing application. As Senior Billing Operations Manager, Kristie is responsible for managing and processing all billing data generated across EWS’s expansive portfolio of risk management, fraud, and payment solutions.
As the immense popularity of Zelle®, combined with the successful introduction of new products, began to surge data volumes beyond the capability of EWS’s legacy billing system, the need to acquire more advanced and robust billing capabilities became clear. During a fireside chat at Aria Recur 2025, Kristie explained to Desiree Armbruster, Aria’s Senior Director of Customer Success, why EWS selected Aria and the benefits the company has enjoyed since deploying Aria Billing Cloud.
Can you tell us a little bit about Early Warning Services?
We are the company behind the Zelle® and Paze℠ networks. We also provide fraud management solutions. Zelle® is a digital payment network integrated into many bank and credit union apps that allows users to send and receive money quickly, typically within minutes, using just an email address or U.S. mobile number. Paze℠ is a service that financial institutions offer to consumers and merchants for online purchases. In 2024, we had 151 million enrolled consumers and small business accounts using Zelle®.
What challenges were you facing that prompted you to consider a new billing system?
We had been using a home-grown billing system that was 20 years old and it was struggling to handle the volume of data we needed to process. For context, Zelle® processed more than $1 trillion in payment transactions last year alone. We needed a billing system that was stable, reliable, flexible, and could support significant volumes of data so we could continue to enhance existing products and develop new ones, like Paze℠.
Why did you ultimately select Aria?
We were looking for a partner in our growth experience and Aria checked all the boxes. Aria offered the stability to support our pace of growth and demonstrated the ability to handle the data volumes we are processing now and expect to process in the future.
What improvements did finance and operations experience after deploying Aria?
Our teams always want to see the numbers to better understand where we are with our customers. Our finance teams also need this information for reporting to the C-suite. Aria has allowed us to reduce processing time from 15 days to 4 – 5 days, so we’re able to share the numbers with our internal teams sooner. As a result, reporting is more reflective of real-time numbers, and executives now have better visibility into the performance and fluctuation of our products and services. Additionally, as we can now get invoices out the door more quickly, we are getting paid sooner. Instead of customers rolling over to the next month, we now have them paying the same month that they receive an invoice. The improved cash flow has helped reduce days sales outstanding (DSO) and position the company for substantial future growth. Finally, Aria allows us to stand up and bill for new products and services with much greater speed using a variety of pricing models.
How have Aria’s automation capabilities helped your team?
It used to take a full day to calculate data volumes on a single product. When it takes days and weeks to process invoices, you don’t have time to work with internal partners to analyze the data and improve products, services, and customer experiences. With the automation aspects of Aria, we’ve been able to reduce processing time to minutes, which has been a tremendous benefit for our team. They can now analyze our billing and share deeper insights regarding customers and usage with our finance department and executives. We can also more easily spot anomalies in customer behavior and alert our support teams.
How was the implementation process?
Because we implemented Aria during Covid, we faced some unique challenges. Everybody was working from home, which added a level of stress. But Aria was a great partner throughout the process. We were able to onboard our first product in under a year, which was a huge benefit to our company. Aria was able to deliver on time and on budget. But the support didn’t end with implementation. We continue to have weekly meetings and ongoing communications with our Aria support teams to help us get the most out of the billing system.
What advice do you have for companies seeking to enhance their billing capability?
Lean on Aria for best practices and leverage the tremendous ongoing partnership and communication that Aria offers.
