#ChimeCARES Update: Initial stimulus payments have been received. More on the way.

Update: April 10, 2020

Earlier today, our government began informing banks about stimulus payment (aka Economic Impact Payments) details for the first batch of electronic tax filers. The notifications we received informed us of over $375,000,000 of Chime member payments that are scheduled to be released on April 15 – the date that these funds will be transferred to banks.

Rather than wait until the 15th, Chime has worked closely with our bank partners to make these funds available immediately. As of tonight, we’ve already delivered this stimulus money to over 230,000 Chime members. We expect to be in a position to release many more payments to Chime members in the coming days. 

As with all of our direct deposits, payments are released as soon as they are received. This results in our members often getting their paychecks up to 2 days early. We’re happy to be able to help our members get these important government payments up to 5 days early.

Please keep in mind that additional payments will be arriving in batches and we won’t know the details until we receive the government notifications. Therefore, our member support agents do not have any information on the status of government payments. Also note that if you were given a temporary ChimeCARES SpotMe increase, that limit will reset to your normal level when your stimulus payment arrives in your account. 

Stay safe and keep on the lookout for additional notifications in your Chime app.

💚,

The Chime Team

UPDATE: April 8, 2020

Last week, we stressed the importance of getting government stimulus payments to Americans faster and began testing higher SpotMe limits as a way to help our members. 

Our test validated that people need some of this money right away. However, our data also showed that the majority of members in our test did not raise their SpotMe limits to the full $1,200 we offered them. As a result, we’ve decided to modify our approach to allow us to offer some additional short-term SpotMe support to even more members. 

This morning, we took our next step by providing 100,000 randomly selected members with immediate access to $200 of spending power through SpotMe. These members will be able to use that money right away on daily necessities while they wait for their economic impact payment to arrive. We plan to adjust SpotMe limits back to normal levels after stimulus payments are distributed.

Meanwhile, we’re actively engaged with our government and other industry leaders to find additional ways to help our members and the community at large. We are with you and we will keep pushing these efforts forward. There has never been a more important time for us to stand by our members. We’re committed to having your back now more than ever and we hope this provides many of you some relief.

Let us know what you think using #ChimeCARES on Twitter or share on Facebook.

💚,

The Chime Team

Date: April 2, 2020

Last week, Congress passed a historic bill that will provide a direct payment of $1,200 to every adult earning less than $75,000 plus an additional $500 payment per child. While we’re all proud of our government’s action with this bill, we know that timing really matters for many of our members. For some, the 2-3 week time frame is too long.

As of April 2, Chime has provided 1,000 randomly selected members who met certain criteria with immediate access to $1,200 of spending power through SpotMe before economic impact payments are distributed. SpotMe is Chime’s fee-free alternative to bank overdrafts and allows eligible members to take their account negative while they wait for their next payroll direct deposit. We plan to adjust SpotMe limits back to normal levels after stimulus payments are distributed. In the meantime, these randomly selected members will have access to spend an amount equaling their estimated government payment 2-3 weeks early and be able to use that money right away on everyday needs such as groceries and bill payments with their Chime card.

At the same time, we’ve also reached out to government officials to propose a public/private partnership to provide free bank accounts, debit cards, and virtual cards in an effort to accelerate payments to even more Americans. We also hope to be able to offer this additional SpotMe access to more members.  

It’s more important than ever for us to have our members’ backs. We hope to inspire and partner with other organizations to take action and help Americans during this challenging time. We’re also thankful for the support from our partner banks, The Bancorp Bank, N.A. and Stride Bank N.A., our investors, and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who helped us push this effort forward.

With love,

The Chime Team 💚

Learn more about SpotMe

To make this a fair process, we randomly selected 101,000 Chime members who met certain criteria, such as having already set up direct deposit, become eligible for SpotMe, and deposited a tax refund into Chime.

*SpotMe covers purchases made with your debit card and does not include non-debit card purchases, including ATM withdrawals, ACH transfers, Pay Friends transfers, or Chime Checkbook transactions.