Get to know Chime
Financial peace of mind
Helpful, easy, free
Chime is a financial technology company founded on a simple idea: everyday banking and payment services should be helpful, easy, and free. Our mission is to help our members – everyday people who aren’t well-served by traditional banks – achieve financial peace of mind, together.
Now more than ever, people are looking for an alternative to fee-based banking that’s aligned with their best interests. Chime offers everyday consumers that choice. We helped bring features to market that were unavailable to most consumers just a few years ago – including early access to paychecks, accounts with no monthly fees, and fee-free overdrafts up to $200. We also offer a secured credit card that enables people to safely build credit. And with 60,000+ fee-free ATMs nationwide – a larger network than the four biggest U.S. banks combined – Chime members never have to look far to access cash. Millions of people trust Chime every day.
Aligned interests
A decade ago, in the wake of the global financial crisis, Chime founders Chris Britt and Ryan King saw a traditional banking system benefitting from people’s misfortune by charging billions of dollars in punitive fees each year. In 2012 they founded Chime, determined to build a company that would give people more control of their financial lives.
Chime’s business reflects that commitment. Instead of fees and charges, our revenue comes mainly from transactions, the small amount we earn from Visa when a member uses their Chime card. In other words, we aim to profit with our members, not from them.
Member-obsessed
A new, customer-focused approach
Chime is different from other financial services companies. We obsess over the needs of our members and live by a set of Core Values that guide our actions. We sweat the details of their experience and always have their back. The result: nearly half of Chime’s new signups come from word of mouth and referrals. It’s all part of what we call being “member-obsessed.”
Who are Chime members? They’re mainstream consumers, your friends, coworkers and neighbors — everyday people who often struggle with the high cost and barriers to entry in traditional financial services. This includes young people just entering the job market, women, people of color, and those most affected by economic downturns.
Chime Values
💚 Be member-obsessed
We are guided by a deep understanding of our members’ needs and a devotion to meeting those needs at every step. We practice empathy in everything we do.
🙃 Be human
We keep it real. We build trust and connection with our members by making them laugh, feel understood, and get inspired.
🚀 Be bold
We dream big. We set audacious goals, tackle the hard stuff, and do things that no bank has done before. We see a broken industry and believe in our ability to change it forever.
🎯 Simplify
We start with the simplest solution and only add to it if necessary. We are famously practical and focused. Our motto is “Do Less. Faster. More often.”
📈 Make it happen
We measure the impact of our work and push hard to hit our goals. We find ways around roadblocks. We hold each other accountable to a high bar for performance.
🎖 Respect the rules
We take seriously our obligations to regulators, partners, and the public. We move fast and push for changes without cutting corners. We risk failure if we ever break the regs.
👯 Team up
We know great work isn’t done alone. We organize into teams that leverage the different strengths we each bring. We are stronger when we have each other’s backs.
🙋🏽♀️ Chime in
As owners, we have an obligation to speak up. We share our ideas, ask hard questions, and give candid feedback. When others chime in, we value what they have to say.
Showing up
As the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Chime saw the opportunity to make a difference and got right to work. We were able to give people early access to critical stimulus and unemployment benefit payments, often up to five days before traditional banks. This helped our members pay the rent, support their families and put gas in their cars so they could get to work. In total, Chime delivered early access to more than $6.5 billion of pandemic-related benefits to our members.
Playing by the rules
More choice, more innovation
Chime is not a bank. Instead, we partner with regional banks to design and deliver easy-to-use financial products for consumers. All of our members’ account balances are safely held at regulated, FDIC-insured banks, and our products comply with all applicable banking laws and regulations.
Our innovations have created more choice for consumers and proven that our partner bank approach creates a more competitive financial services industry. We’re proud of the positive impact we’ve had.
As a technology company, Chime’s expertise and platform investments help our bank partners better serve and expand their customer bases. This helps make them more competitive in an era of increasing industry consolidation, with the top few banks getting larger everyday at their expense.
Transparent, trusted
Nothing is more important at Chime than safeguarding members’ money and personal information, and we fully comply with the rules and regulations put in place to protect consumers. In addition, Chime has made significant investments in people and technology to ensure we’re a responsible participant within the payments and finance ecosystem. That focus allows us to meet our commitments to federal and state regulators, our partner banks, and most importantly, our members.
Chime has built a world-class team to manage risk, including experts in cybersecurity, financial fraud, anti-money laundering, analytics, underwriting, and machine learning. Our banking partners audit our work and we work closely with them to review and respond to all consumer complaints.
Regulated
Chime’s work is supervised by our partner banks, Bancorp Bank and Stride Bank, as well as their regulators, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). At the federal level, Chime is also subject to the jurisdiction of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and the Department of Justice (DOJ). At the state level, Chime is regulated by agencies focused on consumer welfare and financial services.
Chime’s financial products are always designed in coordination with our bank partners.
Making a difference
Building a foundation
Chime has members in all 50 states, each experiencing their own financial triumphs and challenges. We strive to be a resource for families, help them stay on top of their finances, avoid unnecessary fees and create a solid financial foundation.
Creating impact
Chime distributed more than $600,000 in grants in 2020 to support partner organizations, social causes, and COVID-19 and disaster relief. This included multi-year grants, unrestricted funding, employee matched donations, and grants through our Employee Resource Groups (ERGs).
Chime backs organizations and causes that work for racial and gender-based equity, with the goal of uplifting underrepresented groups of people. In the past year, we have given grants to the Equal Justice Initiative, Black Girls Code, 100 Black Men, The Asian American Foundation, Asian Pacific Fund, and other organizations that focus on racial equity. We also provide a budget to each of our seven ERGs so they can support nonprofits and initiatives they are passionate about.
As a Pledge 1% member, Chime employees can use 1% of their work time to volunteer and give back. Chimers can create their own volunteer activities and or choose from existing opportunities through VolunteerMatch.
Passionate people
Chime is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in Chicago and Vancouver. Although Chimers come from many different backgrounds, they have one big thing in common: an abiding passion for our mission.
Chimers are engineers and customer service professionals, designers and data scientists, experts on risk and cybersecurity — talented people who are dedicated to making financial services work for more people and to helping transform lives.
Chime is committed to building a diverse workforce at both the employee and leadership level. We believe Chime’s open and supportive culture inspires our employees to do an even better job serving members. In 2021 alone, Chime was named to Fortune’s list of Best Small & Medium Workplaces, Best Workplaces for Millennials, Best Workplaces in Financial Services and People Magazine’s Top 100 Companies that Care list.