WePay, a legit threat to PayPal

WePay could out perfom PayPal

Those of us who have been part of a group and needed to collect money from people know how awkward it can be, and this is where newly launched WePay comes in. The idea is that WePay helps groups of people collaboratively manage financial accounts.

WePay was dreamt up by two Boston College graduates, Bill Clerico and Rich Aberman, who have spent the last 14 months trying to raise the funds and backing to get the project started. In total WePay raised $1.65 million of venture funding from August Capital and a group of angel investors including Eric Dunn, a former chief technology officer at Intuit, the maker of Quicken personal finance software. The two entrepreneurs have recently set up offices in Palo Alto.

How it works

In essence the WePay platform can be used by any group of numerous people wanting to jointly access a pool of capital and lets the group create accounts, produce invoices, collect money, manage transactions and make easily-monitored payments.

"WePay is a lot easier to use than PayPal, especially when you're trying to collect money from a lot of different people," says WePay co-founder Rich Aberman. "But the real difference between WePay and PayPal is that WePay allows users to create separate accounts for different things - like an account for your roommates and a totally separate one for a group vacation."

"WePay has made the collection and payment process stress free for everyone involved," said one user. "I'm able to quickly send 'bills' to my teammates and I'm notified when they submit payment. My favourite part is that WePay sends reminders directly to teammates with a balance due. This eliminates the discomfort of having to remind friends that they owe me money."

WePay makes its money by charging a 3.5 percent transaction fee (there's also a different plan that charges 50 cents per transaction and limits you on the methods of payment you can accept).

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