PayBox, the popular money management app, announced today (Sunday) the launch of "Shared Box," a new service for managing joint expenses. This service provides a simple, accessible, and free alternative to traditional shared bank accounts, facilitating easier management of finances for couples, roommates, co-parenting parents, and more, without the hassle of opening a bank account.
With "Shared Box," PayBox offers a cost-free solution to the expensive and complex shared bank accounts. The new service will enable millions of PayBox users to easily and quickly open accounts for joint purposes. Unlike existing PayBox groups, every participant in a "Box" can load money into it, use it for payments anywhere, view other participants' activities, and more, similar to a shared bank account. This service aims to address the need for managing shared expenses, including those of couples, roommates, co-parenting parents, friends on a trip, and others.
Until now, those wishing to manage money together for a common purpose had to open a shared bank account through a lengthy and cumbersome process, typically involving a physical visit to a branch and high, unnecessary fees. PayBox’s new free service allows millions of app users to easily open shared accounts and manage money together for common goals.
Unlike current PayBox groups, in this new service, all participants can use the money, make payments anywhere, and view other participants’ actions—just like in a shared bank account. For example, roommates can open a shared Box to pay for household expenses (electricity, water, shared groceries); a divorced couple can open a Box to manage joint expenses related to their children (extracurricular activities, summer camp, private lessons); friends traveling together can open a Box to pay for shared trip expenses (lodging, fuel, meals); and more.
Using shared Boxes eliminates the need for users to track who paid for what and reconcile later through WhatsApp, Splitwise, or any other tool.
Each PayBox user can open up to 5 shared Boxes, and each Box can have up to 8 participants. All participants can deposit money into the Box, make payments from it, and view the activities of other participants. Loading funds into the shared Box and making payments anywhere (in stores and online) will be possible only through PayBox's digital credit card, which can be issued for free (with no card fees for life) within minutes, directly from the app.
Eric Frishman, CEO of PayBox, stated, "As social beings, we all occasionally need to manage money together with friends and relatives—for the roommate apartment account, the shared trip expenses, the children's expenses we manage in joint custody, and more.
Since no one considers opening an expensive and cumbersome shared bank account for these purposes, we are always busy paying and reconciling later. That’s exactly why we developed the shared Boxes of PayBox—account-like solutions that allow shared money management for any purpose, without hassle, bureaucracy, or cost."
Frishman added, "The launch of shared Boxes is another step in the evolution of PayBox from a money transfer and collection app to a money management app. We realized that the services offered by banks do not fit how the public manages, or wants to manage, their money. The public wants to manage money by goals, manage it together with friends and family, open and close accounts quickly and easily, and not pay excessive fees. PayBox is determined to provide exactly that—we were the first to offer a credit card with no fees for life, the first to pay attractive interest on liquid balances in the app, the first to allow money management in separate accounts by goals and objectives, and now also the first to allow shared account-like management together with friends for any purpose."
Earlier this year, PayBox launched the personal Box, allowing users to manage money in goal-based accounts—a dining-out account, a bill payment account (property tax, electricity, water), a vacation savings account, a car test savings account, and more.
Money in personal Boxes is completely liquid and accrues interest. Additionally, managing money in personal Boxes allows for better expense control, which is particularly important in light of the economic challenges facing the market.
PayBox is a money management app with over 4 million downloads and more than 1.5 million unique monthly users. PayBox customers can perform a wide range of actions, including holding balances in the app separate from their bank accounts, paying from these balances anywhere using a free digital credit card, transferring and receiving money, setting up groups to collect money for joint purposes, applying for loans, and more.
Founded in 2014 as a startup, PayBox is now an independent banking subsidiary, owned by Discount Bank (50.1%) and Shufersal (49.9%). PayBox is managed by CEO Eric Frishman, and the company’s chairman is Avi Levy, CEO of Discount Bank.