You and your friends will need a free Paypal account to dip into Paypal's new Money Pools, the "free and simple way to collect and keep track of money for shared expenses with family and friends."
PayPal’s Money Pools is billed as "a free and simple way to collect and keep track of money for shared expenses with family and friends within a PayPal account."
We're told that with Money Pools, PayPal users "can now collect money for a vacation, a group gift, or for regular shared expenses like utilities: they simply create a Money Pool and share the link with their friends and family who use PayPal."
Money Pools thus "provides the millions of customers who already use PayPal person-to-person payments a more personalised and organised way to manage shared expenses while also easing the burden of having to front the money or chase people to pay you back."
{loadposition alex08}It's also a way to fight back against future competing services from Apple Pay or other payment systems, and with Paypal universally available across iOS, Android and other platforms, Paypal clearly hopes you'll find its pool is the best one to swim in.
So, how does it work?
Let's start with Paypal's official video, and then we can read Paypal's explanation below.
Here are the four things you need to do to dip your toe - and then your wallet - into Money Pools:
1. CREATE: from a PayPal account on web or the app PayPal, you just have to look for the Money Pools module on your Summary page and click on ‘Create a Pool’.
2. PERSONALISE: you can personalise the pool with details on what you are collecting for, the monetary goal and when you will need the funds. You can also customise their pool by adding a cover photo and selecting whether names and contribution amounts are public or private in their pool’s activity feed.
3. SHARE: a special link is created that you can share with their friends and family via text, e-mail, Facebook or Twitter to start collecting. If your friends or family don’t already have a PayPal account, they can easily open one for free.
4. SPEND: All of the contributions are tracked in the pool’s activity feed and go straight to the pool’s creators’ PayPal account to spend when they’re ready.
Money Pools is available now in 16 countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom and the United States.
More information about Money Pools is here.