It’s nearly Rocking the Daisies time, and taking that much-needed weekend away with your mates just got a whole lot easier.
Collecting cash for booking tickets, accommodation, common transport and toasting the good times with your friends – once a thankless chore that strained many a friendship – is now as simple as creating an instant messaging group.
Virgin Money’s P2P app, Spot, has a great new feature called Group Pay, which allows users to create groups of friends, name the group, and request payment. Once you know how big you’re going this year, you can set a budget. Then it’s as easy as splitting the amount equally, or allocating different amounts – and you can instantly see who has paid, declined or is still pending.
Festivals being what they are, chances are that at some point you’ll lose track of your spending. In the heat of the moment, you’ll probably borrow some money from a mate, and it will be #happydays for the moment.
Then, before you know it, it’s back to reality. The next Monday arrives, and you have to pay them back. And none of the options are attractive.
Option One: get your friend’s bank details and go through the schlep of doing an EFT. Log on. Hope your computer is secure. Enter their details. If they’re with another bank, instant clearance is going to cost you. And is it even safe to share banking details nowadays?
Option Two: take time out of your lunch hour to go to an ATM. Stand in line. Pay withdrawal fees (for what, exactly?). Walk around with a wad of cash in your pocket, looking nervously over your shoulder the whole time. Make a special trip to give your mate the money.
Of course, there’s Option Three: ghost your mate. Ignore their increasingly desperate messages and avoid them like the plague. End up losing your friend over a couple of hundred bucks. Not a great option, either.
Luckily, there’s Option Four: the cashless, easy way. Take out your phone. Open Spot. Click your friend’s name and send them the money. No fees. No fuss. Safe. Convenient.
“It’s 2018, people. Cashless is king. We’ve got to take back control of our own money,” says Andre Hugo, CEO of Virgin Money. “Cash costs you money to draw, and it’s not safe to carry around. The cashless world is quicker, faster, cheaper and safer. And you get to keep your friendships intact.”
Search for the Virgin Money Spot app on Google Play and the Apple App Store.