Summary
Cash App has just launched “Pools,” a new feature designed to streamline the process of collecting money from multiple people for a shared expense. This feature allows a single organizer to create a collective money pot for a specific purpose, such as a group dinner, vacation booking, or concert tickets. Once the money for that shared expense has been collected, the pot can then be closed. The money is transferred to the organizer’s Cash App account to be used to pay for that expense, either by paying for it with the user’s Cash App debit card or by transferring it to a bank account after the fact.
What’s perhaps more interesting about this feature is that you don’t need a Cash App account to participate in one of these pools. While organizers can invite fellow Cash App users with their unique $Cashtag, they can also generate shareable links that can be sent via text or other messaging platforms. Recipients of these links who do not have a Cash App account can contribute to the pool using Apple Pay or Google Pay, so they can just use their own debit card from their bank or from another app to pay for said expense. This way, everyone can split the bill.
Organizers can create a pool within seconds, set a target funding goal to track progress, and see a clear ledger of who has contributed. And as a contributor, you can just transfer however much money you want to contribute towards that shared goal. It’s not clear if the app provides a way to split the amount equally among all contributors or if they can just chip in however much they want.
There are tons of strategies for money pots—I’m personally tracking things myself for my next trip with friends using an Excel sheet. Cash App’s solution is nice because it gives contributors a way to pay directly through a link and keep things neat and tidy all in one place. And the fact it can be used if you don’t have Cash App is also neat because it lets you use it even if your loyalties lie in other apps, such as Venmo.
The feature is rolling out to a select group of users from today. If all goes well, it will eventually make its way to everyone sooner than later.
