[ianai]

Actually, having worked in hospitality, the threat of a device becoming useless if stolen does hinder theft. (Won’t stop very sophisticated criminals who can make money off parts, but there’s always a threshold with this sort of thing.) If a criminal knows a financial channel can be reverted they will avoid it. That provides the other side of the transaction a clue. If Zelle had a credible threat of reversing fraud people could insist on using it - and thus it becomes a proxy for trust in an otherwise trust-less situation.