PayPal Brings Back Money Pool for Shared Expenses

PayPal’s money pools let you collect and save money along with others for joint financial goals and shared expenses without any additional costs.

PayPal has announced a money pooling feature for its mobile app that lets you track spending and contribute towards group expenses like dining, traveling, or contributing towards gifts. It allows you to either create a pool or contribute to pools created by basically anyone you can trust with money.

PayPal says using pools will not accrue any additional costs, and you will be allowed to contribute even without a PayPal account. Organizers will have control over the funds and can transfer them to their PayPal or linked bank accounts or spend them directly.

The money transfer app says the feature fosters connections and makes “chipping in for a group gift or planning a trip with friends and family” easier. The feature will only be available in certain countries, initially including the US, Germany, Italy, and Spain. The company hasn’t revealed plans for further expansion.

How To Set Up and Use PayPal Money Pools

To host or contribute to a pool, you get quick and easy options within the PayPal app. Here’s what you need to do:

1. Go to the app, and choose “Pool Money” from the menu to create a pool. Alternatively, you can go to “More Options” and then tap “Send/Request” to initiate a new pool.
2. Enter a title, some description, a target date, and the amount you wish to collect over that time.
3. You can then invite other people to contribute to the pool using a web link which can be shared over any messaging app.
4. To contribute to an existing app, simply pay on the link using any supported payment method.

PayPal Money Pools Aren’t Really New

Even though PayPal touts pooling as a “new experience,” it isn’t truly new to the ecosystem. PayPal first introduced money pools in 2017 to “people collect money from each other and keep track of group spending.”

However, the feature was discontinued in 2021 by PayPal so it could pay attention to “consistently evolving” the money transfer experiences and deepen its focus on “more specialized money raising services.” The real reason may have been lack of support for people without PayPal accounts, which the company has addressed this time around. There’s also a more intuitive interface this time.

Meanwhile, several other competitors have cropped up that either specialize in bill splitting — like Splitwise or Givetastic — or are full-fledged payments providers such as Venmo, which launched its group splitting and payments feature earlier this year.