00:00Actually, the other thing you're getting a lot of credit for is a technology story, a lot of the transition
00:05to your own tech stack, how you've managed the company.
00:08You don't need to grow headcount necessarily because of the focus and investment you've made on tech.
00:13Do you mind if we start with that and explain a bit about the strategy behind that?
00:18Yeah, absolutely. And first of all, thanks for having me today. I'm so proud of this team and the way
00:23that we've executed.
00:24I think we're shipping faster than ever. And, you know, if you just think about this first year of this
00:31is the first time we're reporting as a public company, our full year results.
00:35And they were outstanding. You know, we we added a million five new active members who are now at nine
00:41point five million actives.
00:42We took the company public. We launched a range of new products. We launched a new business in our enterprise
00:48channel.
00:48And yes, to your point, we completed the conversion of our core processing and ledgering system onto our own in
00:56-house tech stack, top to bottom.
00:58And that's really unleashed not only lowered costs, but also unleashed a whole set of new products and services for
01:05our members that that drove awesome results for the year of two point two billion dollars of top line revenue.
01:12Growing up, we're 30 percent. And and we got to a 10 percent EBITDA margin in Q4.
01:18So feeling good across the board. And this technology platform really is an enabler for our future growth.
01:23Last month, I was on your own website. You did this kind of blog post. It was what is Chime?
01:28Chime is not a bank. And if you consider, you know, what the products you're offering are,
01:33a big part of where the streets focused on is new products coming to market and how you've monetized that.
01:39So you take Chime card, for example, through that lens, explain what you are,
01:44but also how you've been able to launch a sort of wider offering of financial services as a fintech company.
01:52Right. Chime at our core, we're a technology company. We partner with banks.
01:56And so when you sign up for a Chime account, think of it, you're basically doing.
01:59There's a three way relationship between the consumer Chime as the technology enabler and brand
02:06and the design and deliver delivery of all the actual experience and then the bank.
02:12So we have some community bank partners that actually hold the deposits in FDIC insured accounts for our members.
02:18And this approach has worked really, really well, particularly for mainstream American people that oftentimes live paycheck to paycheck,
02:24basically the population that makes up to about one hundred thousand dollars a year.
02:28That's the segment that we serve. And we offer a range of core banking services, fee-free checking accounts,
02:34the ability to get access to short-term lines of credit at low cost or no cost,
02:39the ability to build your credit and to earn high yield savings.
02:42And because we're a technology company, we don't have physical branches and a heavy infrastructure, physical infrastructure.
02:49We're able to operate at a really low cost structure and we deliver that value back to our consumers.
02:55And that's allowed us to really outmaneuver the big banks.
02:59We've been continuing to increase our share of new accounts, new checking accounts in America.
03:06And third-party research continues to show that we are having an outsized impact and increasing our share.
03:12Let's go to swipe fees because that is where you get a lot of the revenue.
03:17Is there any issue, any concern longer term as you scale that that will become a regulatory issue
03:22as you hit certain benchmarks and amounts of money that you manage?
03:26Yeah, I think as we've grown over the past few years, you've seen an increasing balance in our business.
03:31So we were historically very heavily reliant on fees that we earn from Visa when our debit cards get used
03:40for everyday transactions.
03:41And we've now have a secured credit card product.
03:45We launched a product called Chime Card last year.
03:48That's a reward, a secured card that has rewards.
03:51And that's kind of changed the game for everyday transactions in America for average people,
03:56you know, average sort of mainstream consumers.
03:59And so that's also a contributing revenue line.
04:04And then increasingly we have other services, our short-term overdraft services,
04:10and our MyPay product has been an outstanding, you know, just one year in.
04:14It's almost a half a billion dollar revenue run rate that allows our members to get access to their paycheck
04:19essentially on demand.
04:21And that's also been a nice, added some additional balance to our revenue mix.
04:28I'm going to ask a sort of more complex and maybe a more emotive question in some way.
04:34You've talked clearly about how you have partnerships with banks.
04:37You're not the bank.
04:37You're not taking the details of the customer in so many ways.
04:39But there has been a consideration from the Trump administration that maybe banks should collect citizenship.
04:45Now, given the people that you serve at the moment, briefly, Chris, is this an issue for you?
04:50It's absolutely not an issue.
04:52First of all, we open up FDIC-insured checking accounts in partnership with our bank partners.
04:57So we comply with the rules and regulations that are required as OCC-chartered banks that offer these FDIC-insured
05:05accounts.
05:05So for every new CHIME member, we collect the full Social Security number and comply with the Patriot Act
05:12and all of the KYC requirements to open up a checking account.
05:16So any rule changes in this area have no impact on our business.
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