00:00Chris, so-called Chime Prime, it seems like a departure from the core Chime product that
00:04appeals to people who don't necessarily care about Priority Pass or luxury hotels.
00:09Explain the strategic shift.
00:11Well, we think it's a natural evolution for our company. And by the way, thanks for having me
00:17today, Tim. It's great to see you. We've already come of age as America's choice for banking,
00:24and you've seen that in the data. J.D. Power for multiple quarters in a row now have reported
00:30that Chime's opened up more checking accounts than any brand in America, including some of
00:35the biggest incumbent banks in the world. So we think that the addition of Chime Prime is a natural
00:42addition for us. We've always done a really good job of cultivating primary direct deposit
00:47relationships with our members, people that are getting direct deposit and using Chime for their
00:52everyday transactions. What we realized is that we weren't doing enough to reward members who
00:56either had the capacity to or were already awarding us with large amounts of deposits. So with Chime
01:03Prime, if you give Chime a $3,000 total direct deposit over the course of a month, we unlock 5
01:11%
01:11cash back on the Chime card, which is a secured credit card. And you can choose the category that
01:19you get the 5% cash back in. So it could be groceries, restaurants, your monthly bills,
01:25you name it. But it's pretty powerful. If you think about a consumer who spends, say, $1,500 a month
01:31on groceries, we're talking about $75 of cash back in the month with this new product. So we're pretty
01:38excited about it. And we think it actually is a natural extension of our product suite.
01:42Well, Chris, one of the reasons we like talking to you is because you have this great real-time view
01:45of
01:45what the consumer is doing and how the consumer is feeling. And I'm wondering, with higher energy
01:49prices and with savings not really there for a lot of Americans right now, how did they weather
01:56the last month?
01:58Well, as we've reported the past few quarters, there's been certainly a lot of, understandably,
02:04uncertainty and some would say some doom and gloom as it relates to the state of the consumer. But
02:09as we've reported the past few quarters, we're seeing a steady, resilient consumer that continues
02:15to increase their spend across the categories of both discretionary and non-discretionary spend.
02:23We see saving account balances continue to stay at a high rate, and we haven't seen any uptick in
02:30unemployment. So I think across all of those areas, we see a healthy consumer. I would note that from
02:37February to March, we did see, not surprisingly, a pretty significant uptick in the amount that
02:43consumers are spending on their fuel purchases. So up over 25 percent, actually, month over a month.
02:50So yeah, that's definitely something that consumers are feeling a real pinch in.
02:57Real quick, what were they spending less on as a result of spending more on fuel?
03:01Well, we have not seen any sort of downdraft in spend at all. So we're continuing to see an uplift
03:08across all the regular sort of everyday categories. About 70 percent of our spend is on non-discretionary.
03:16So that's one of the sort of really positive things about our business models, that whether
03:21the economy is sort of up or down, people are still buying groceries and paying their monthly bills
03:25and paying their mobile bill and all those sorts of things. So nothing's changed on that front.
03:30I think it's fair to say that a lot of CEOs see this environment as a much friendlier regulatory
03:35environment in different industries. Why would you, a non-bank, still believe that not pursuing
03:42a bank charter is the best move in this environment?
03:47Well, you know, there's no question that the regulatory environment has loosened up a bit,
03:53and you can see it in all the, quite a few number of applications to become a bank charter.
03:59We've certainly, you know, that's something that we evaluate every year, and it's certainly
04:04something that, an option that's on the table for us. But, you know, historically, when we've
04:08looked at how we've constructed this business, we think it's really been a win-win for Chime
04:13and our community bank partners that hold the deposits of our members in these FDIC insured
04:18accounts. It gives us the benefits of being a fintech that can move fast and innovate and really
04:23focus on our member needs and have our bank, you know, provide our members with all the
04:29security and protections of having your money safe in a bank account. You know, certainly
04:33as the market changes, we will re-evaluate that, but we don't have any plans to announce
04:39in the short term on that front.
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