Money Watch – Personal Finance Blog

Online money pot Leetchi.com, has launched its service in the UK.

Leetchi.com is a money collection platform that allows anyone to create a ‘money pot’ and invite others to help finance projects such as group gifts for birthdays, baby showers and co-workers, as well as fundraising for projects, charities and events.

With trust in UK charities apparently at a record low, more people are relying on donation-based crowdfunding to help fulfill fundraising targets and remove charities from the equation all together. In order to benefit from this rising trend and offer a better service to its 200,000 UK customers already utilising the Paris-based platform, Leetchi.com has added the ability to use British pound sterling.

Since its launch in 2009, Leetchi has amassed more than six million users worldwide and is available in four languages: French, English, Spanish and German - people can contribute to money pots from over 150 countries.

Leetchi.com claims to offer lower fees than any other online group-gifting platform. Unlike existing platforms in the UK market, it is completely free to create a money pot and launch a campaign. To reduce costs further, Leetchi.com’s extensive list of partner sites means that you can spend your money pool with no additional fee – potentially making the ‘project to purchase’ process completely free.

Leetchi.com’s payment system allows people to donate to money collections with just one click. In addition, social media integration allows users to easily share their money pots across Facebook and Twitter, encouraging their fundraising efforts to go viral. As for pricing, Leetchi.com consider their costs to to some of the most competitive on the market. For collections below £2,000 you’ll pay 4%, over £2,000 the fee drops to 2.9%. However, if you’re spending the collection money via one of Leetchi.com’s partner sites, then there are no charges (although they’re yet to list their partners on their UK website).

Céline Lazorthes, CEO and founder of the Leetchi Group, commented on how the company was founded;

“I was often faced with the problem of advancing money to buy a group gift and spent a lot of time chasing people up to pay me back.The light-bulb moment arrived when I was in charge of organising an integration weekend for my class at HEC Paris, this is when I envisaged an online money pot that would help to overcome all the difficulties associated with collecting money in a group.”

“We are very excited to launch Leetchi in the UK and to provide users with the option to finance projects in GBP. Leetchi has revolutionised the way people raise money for group-gifting and is now bringing an alternative fundraising and gifting service for projects in the UK.”