Chime ( US Challenger Bank)

(Riccardo) #1

Good Afternoon Everyone,
Has anyone heard of Chime bank before? Apparently is the main challenger bank in the USA with around a million of customers.

I was a bit surprised when I read about it as I know of Monzo’s intention of expanding in the US market and never realised there were already important players in the market.

Has anyone got more info about them? (i.e. how long have they been around / quality of the bank)
I couldn’t find much online.

How is Monzo supposed to deal with that, and what’s their strategy for the US market?

📰 Chime - best US disruptor
(chrisdalziel) #2

You might want to check out this thread - When is Monzo available in the US?

#3

There’s a tendency to view Monzo’s competitors as being other challenger banks. 1 million customers in the US market is… small.

(Jolin) #4

Also, Chime is not a bank, it’s a bank account running on another bank’s (Bancorp’s) infrastructure. I imagine this will constrain how much they can innovate and what they can offer.

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There have been a few others using a similar model in recent years, I think. Ultimately, as @lumisota says, the US is a very big market so I don’t think a small player like this is going to be their biggest issue. Monzo hit 1 million UK users in less than a year in a market that’s ~6x smaller than the US.

Not saying that Chime wouldn’t be attractive to someone in the US given how bad the banking system is over there. But I think Monzo can easily compete with this.

#5

Simple (https://www.simple.com) is another example of this.

(Riccardo) #6

You need to relate that figure ( 1 million customers) to the amount of time they’ve been around before saying it’s small. If they’ve gathered 1 million customers in a relatively small amount of time that can be relevant. That’s why I am making if anyone knows more about them i.e. when they started the business.

(Riccardo) #7

Thank you @jzw95 :+1:

(#savetheseabass) #8
#9
#10

This is a good point, though if the article that @Rat_au_van posted is corrected, then they added 1 million accounts in about 5 years.

My thought is more that while it’s easy to think of companies like as Starling being Monzo’s competitors (and of course, technically they are), there is much more to be gained by attracting customers from legacy banks. That’s a different audience altogether.

(Riccardo) #11

Thanks @Theodore, completely missed that thread :sweat_smile:

(Riccardo) #12

:+1:

(Leon) #13

1 million here is also…Small, I understand that it’s taken the American bank 5 years to get to that point but still.

(Colin Robinson) #14