Splitting the check, or even a group vacation, is about to get a lot easier.
Cash App, a popular peer-to-peer payments app, is rolling out a feature called "pools," which allows groups of people to split checks, bills and other payments without everyone needing to have a Cash App account. It does this by, for the first time, accepting third-party payments from Google Pay and Apple Pay.
“With pools, our customers now have a dedicated, easy-to-use solution for group payments,” says Cameron Worboys, head of product design at Cash App, in a news release. “They can start a pool to collect the money in seconds and then instantly transfer the funds to their Cash App balance when it’s time to pay.”
Money is often “inherently social,” Worboys adds, saying that many people use payment apps to split expenses for dinner outings, gifts and group vacations. However, a major headache is that everyone typically has to download the same app to utilize similar check-splitting features. Or someone has to front the expense and receive repayment from the group in various forms.
“People were already using Cash App to cover these group cases, but it was kind of disjointed,” says Kristen Anderson, a product lead at Cash App who helped build the new feature. “It was hacked together across different payment platforms.”
With pools, she says, Cash App aims to make the hassle a thing of the past by “unifying that experience.”
Currently, the feature is available to only a “select group of Cash App users,” the company says, adding that it intends to release the feature universally “in the coming months.”
Anderson says that during this pilot period, only debit card payments from Google Pay and Apple Pay are supported, but that credit card capabilities are being developed “imminently.”
Cash App pools: how the new feature works
Pools can be used to split spur-of-the-moment group purchases, such as restaurant tabs, as well as big, planned expenses. The underlying feature works the same.
For quick splitting, the person who has a Cash App account can gather payments from the group by creating a pool, which can collect other Cash App transfers or payments connected to Google Pay or Apple Pay. The Cash App user then invites the Google Pay and Apple Pay users to make payments via a link in a text.
For bigger purchases, such as a group vacation, a pool can be set up in advance and can help everyone stay on track for saving and contributing toward a specific expense. The company says a key perk of pools is that one group member no longer has to front the major expense and seek reimbursement later.
In either case, when the goal is reached, the organizer of the pool can close it and get the money transferred instantly to their Cash App balance.
Cash App wants to be your ‘entire financial life’
When Cash App launched in 2013, its sole purpose was to send peer-to-peer payments, which were largely made via email at the time.
While quick peer-to-peer transfers are still a core component of Cash App today, the company — a subsidiary of Block and sister company of Square, Afterpay and others — is quickly moving toward becoming an everything-money app, leveraging Block’s foothold across numerous financial sectors.
“We want Cash App to be the financial operating system for the next generation,” Owen Jennings, head of business at Block, told CNBC Tuesday, “to essentially be the money app where a customer can run their entire financial life.”
Anderson echoes that sentiment, adding, “our whole financial life is obviously much broader than” peer-to-peer payments. Today, Cash App users can now save, send and invest money on the app, buy crypto and even file their taxes.
She says the app aims to have a service “to help people meet all of their needs, from borrowing when times are tight, to saving and investing when times are good.”
The race for your financial data
Cash App isn’t the only one that wants to be your everything-money app. Payment transfer apps are fiercely competitive, looking to add ever more financial services to their offerings.
Paypal and Paypal-owned Venmo have, in recent years, added a host of additional features beyond transfers, such as credit and debit cards and crypto-investing. Meanwhile, Zelle, another popular money-sending app, has focused on directly integrating with banks.
With each new service, these apps are hoping to draw you into their financial ecosystems — and keep you there. It’s part of a broader, lucrative trend among financial technology companies, or fintechs, of building unified snapshots of people’s financial lives to sell to advertisers or even credit-scoring bureaus.
According to the nonprofit National Consumer Law Center (which advocates against the growing trend), the financial data broker industry was valued at $240 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach over $462 billion by 2031. And a glut of fintechs want in on the action.
With Cash App pools, it seems the company has found a clever way to expand its reach in a hotly competitive market — without you ever having to download the app.
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