Alternative to PayPal Money Pools

If you were a PayPal Money Pools user, you will know by now that you can't create a new money pool.

You might be thinking, 'how on earth am I going to collect money from my friends now!?' 😱 Don't worry! Collctiv's got you covered.

Create a money pool now!

How do Money Pools work?

A money pool is simply a digital version of the old brown paper envelope that used to get passed around when someone was collecting cash for something. It's a way of simply and easily collecting money from a group of people, for a joint activity, booking or purchase. The Organiser in the group creates a money pool and then shares the payment link with the rest of the people in the group. Everyone else chips in, and once the pool has enough money in it, the Organiser can go ahead and buy or book the group item or activity. Money pools can be used to collect for anything that a group of people do together, from sports to holidays, gifts to activities - wherever we need to book or buy as a group, people are going to need to pool money to make it happen.

Why did PayPal Money Pools shut down?

It's a fine question, and although we contacted PayPal for an answer, for some reason they didn't get back to us 🤔 🤷 Nonetheless, we have a couple of thoughts, which we've popped into a whole separate blog over here.

Who are Collctiv?

We're Collctiv, a friendly bunch based in the UK 🇬🇧 We're a FinTech company, which simply means we use state-of-the-art financial technology 🤓 to make it easier for you to split payments with your friends. More specifically, we make it easier for you to collect money upfront from your group, so you don't have to pay out for people, crossing your fingers 🤞 and hoping they pay you back. Our founders are Amy Whitell (CEO) and Pete Casson (CTO), who between them have over 30 years experience building technologies and businesses that have real impact on people's lives. More importantly, Pete (a Contributor) used to owe Amy (an Organiser) money all of the time. Nowadays he has no excuse, and everything is right with the world 😌

What's the difference between a PayPal Money Pool and a Collctiv Pot?

While both things aim to be a digital whip-round, there are a few key differences between how PayPal Money Pools worked and how we went about creating the solution for every out-of-pocket Organiser out there:

So you want me to sign up my Nan? 👵

Perhaps the most annoying thing about a PayPal Money pool was that everyone had to be a PayPal user to contribute to the pool. Which meant that if you were doing a family whip-round for Grandad's birthday then your Nan needed to create a PayPal account. Or if Janice in Accounts was retiring, then the entire team needed to be PayPal users to be able to chip in to the leaving meal. No need for any of that nonsense with Collctiv. Once you've shared the payment link with your group, people just tap to pay in, using their card, Apple or Google Pay. No account creation, no app download, no banking, no fuss = more money in your pocket. You can thank us later.

I've got to live where exactly? 🌍

We've got to be fair and remember that PayPal was created in the 1990's, which was a glorious decade, giving us The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, an end to apartheid in South Africa, and the first three of the Harry Potter novels. All that notwithstanding, it was a time in history before smartphones were invented, when there was no Facebook, bluetooth was unheard of, and when people thought 'broadband' meant a musical entourage with a few too many members. Perhaps because it's so old, PayPal Money Pools were not built to be used by global people who need to collect money from each other across borders. We are. Colleagues, family members, old friends - it doesn't matter where they are in the world, they can tap and pay into your Collctiv pot.

With Collctiv, you're in the driving seat: 🚗

PayPal's Money Pools were fairly restrictive in their creation process, including requiring you to put a deadline on the pool, which had to be within 30 days. But what if you need your pool to be open for longer than that? With Collctiv you can set deadlines if you like, or pop a target on if you're trying to hit a certain amount. Or not. It's up to you, we're not your parents.

Pledges? We wanna see the real money! 🤑

As the creator of a PayPal Money Pool, you couldn't actually contribute to your own pool. Huh? Yeap, doesn't make sense to us either. You could make a pledge, a fake I.O.U. if you will. But how does that work if you're trying to collect for a regular group activity, like that Sunday 5-aside footy you play? As an Organiser paying for courts or pitches, you need to have the actual money in your pool or pot.

And - probably most importantly - Collctiv is still alive and kicking!

What do I need to know about the PayPal Money Pools shutdown?

Because we're incredibly helpful people, we summarised the key dates you needed to know during the PayPal Money Pools shutdown saga. For any ancient history historians out there, those dates were:

• 30th September 2021: You couldn't create a new money pool.
• 30th October 2021: Any open money pools expired.
• 8th November 2021: You needed to have moved any money leftover in your money pools to your PayPal balance.
• 8th November 2021: Any records about who chipped in to your money pool weren't available after this date, so we hope you made a note of who paid what! Otherwise things could get pretty messy in the future...
• 15th November 2021: If there was any dosh left in your pools after the 8th November, PayPal very kindly dumped it into your main account.

There's also a whole load more info over here that you might find helpful.

How do I get my hands on the Collctiv app??

We thought you'd never ask 😉 you can download the app here. Let us know what you're collecting for! @collctivapp on all the usual socials - Facebook, Instagram, Twitter.

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