This new messaging app has a built-in wallet that lets you send money to your friends

Did you ever text a coffee to your buddy? Now you can with this new app.

Created in the Philippines, Cheers is the first social messaging app that’s built around a mobile wallet.

Imagine paying for your friend’s coffee while chatting. Cheers makes this possible by offering a selection of “gifts” between friends. The app essentially adds a new dimension to how people interact over mobile: aside from texts, smileys, stickers, and multimedia content, users can send items – or their equivalent amount – right into a friend’s wallet (so long as that friend uses the same app, of course).

Cheers founder Gregor Arn – or Mister G, as he’s known inside the app – says this transforms messaging. “Cheers offers users an opportunity to send low amounts of money to each other. Unlike a dull money transfer, we have embedded this as part of messaging and made it socially relevant. It’s the most meaningful way to send someone a small token of appreciation.”

The Android version of the app was launched in December, and then its iOS counterpart arrived in January.

While Cheers is the first such social app to launch with a wallet, China’s WeChat has grown to include epayments and a mobile wallet. Last summer, WeChat added in support for money transfers between friends. During last week’s Chinese New Year festivities, WeChat users in China used that feature to gift each other one billion relatively small sums of cash in the course of just a few hours.

Making epayments more accessible

The Cheers wallet can be loaded through various methods in the Philippines, such as GCASH and “bayad” (pay) centers, and money can also be taken out again. Once a user has received something in the app, he or she can choose to leave it in the wallet, send it to others, or use it to pay. “If I want to surprise someone and send a donut, it’s the surprise that counts. Whether that person goes and buys that donut or uses the money for something else they prefer, that doesn’t matter,” Arn notes.

One way to take money out of the wallet is by using a prepaid Mastercard. This card can be ordered straight from within the Cheers app. A user can transfer money from the Cheers wallet straight onto the Mastercard and use the card to pay in a restaurant, on the internet, or anywhere else where Mastercard is accepted. “In the past, too many people have been excluded from getting a payment card because they didn’t have a bank account. It’s time to change this,” explains Arn.

He says Cheers also allows its users to buy and sell digital content such as photos or electronic movie tickets, although this trading feature is only available on Android at the moment.

Philippines as first market