PayPal Me, a practical way to pay money you owe friends

We all have that friend—THAT FRIEND—who when it comes time to divide up the restaurant bill suddenly remembers that he has no cash, and the next day you also have to buy his bus ticket because he has no change. For all such innocent souls, PayPal has launched a new service that uses a small custom URL to allow you to make online payments between friends and family over its platform with a single click and no commission or fees.

The system is extremely simple. By accessing the official webpage of the PayPal Me service you can create your own custom URL and share the link anywhere, whether its WhatsApp or via email. Anyone who clicks the link can send you money, with the only requirement being that they also have a PayPal account. In addition, if you add a slash and number, you can fix the amount to be sent. For example: http://paypal.me/<username>/20 will display a webpage where you can pay €20 to the person in question.

At the moment the service is available in 18 countries, including Spain (with Latin America to come later). It’s completely free for users in the same country, or in the case of Europe, everybody in the European Economic Area. At least that’s the case if you’ve chosen the option to create the link for ‘Friends and Family’. If you choose ‘Products and Services’ you’ll get the usual Paypal fees, although for now the most natural use of this system seems to be in small circles of friends.