And finally…Paypal creates group chat for payments

Paypal said its Money Pools service lets people create pages to allow their contacts to fund raise for a specific item or event, such as buying a group gift, a group trip, or housemates paying the rent.

The company said that the feature is not a crowdfunding platform because it is “not intended to facilitate fundraising for activities such as product development and organisers agree not to offer perks, rewards, or other incentives in return for contributions”.

The service, PayPal says, is free when you use money from your PayPal wallet, or a debit card or a bank account linked to your PayPal account, but Standard PayPal fees apply when you have to make a currency conversion or use a credit card (also linked to your PayPal account).

Once you create a page, Money Pools works similarly to other social funding sites like GoFundMe: you can personalise the page with pictures and how you want contributions to appear (public or anonymously); you can update the site’s activity feed; and you can — important for social-payments — share a link to the campaign with a short URL via text, e-mail, Facebook or Twitter.

Paypal is rolling out the service in 17 countries via a new ‘Your Pools’ link on user accounts.