Chime Expands Banking App to Include Investment Services

Chime Invest, announced Monday (July 20), lets members buy stocks and exchange-traded funds in the same app they use for things like spending and saving.

“About 40% of Americans report not owning any stock, missing out on one of the most reliable ways to build wealth over time,” the company said in a news release. “For many, getting started has felt intimidating, time-consuming, or simply easy to put off.”

Chime cites an in-house survey in which members noted similar barriers. They have no time to learn the market, more pressing needs for their money, and worry about the cost of consulting a professional. Chime Invest, the company said, lets members start with as little as $1, with expert-managed portfolios for users without the time or experience.

“The hardest part of investing is often getting started and sticking with it,” Chime Co-Founder and CEO Chris Britt, said in the announcement. “Millions of people already trust Chime with their money every day. By bringing investing into the app they already know and love, we’re making it easier to turn saving into investing and investing into long-term wealth.”

Writing about Chime’s most recent earnings report in May, PYMNTS noted that the results revealed that while the “FinTech landscape is undoubtedly a mature one these days,” it doesn’t mean “that firms can’t still achieve scale without abandoning growth, or that both scale and growth are ever risk-free.”

At the time, Chime had just recorded its first quarter of GAAP profitability as a public company, and saw 25% year-over-year revenue growth, surpassing guidance and analyst estimates.

“Still, the harder question for FinTechs more broadly is whether they can preserve agility and consumer trust once they begin to resemble the institutions they originally set out to disrupt,” the report added.

Britt emphasized to investors that the FinTech platform “reached 10.2 million active members, with more Americans opening bank accounts with Chime than any other financial institution,” placing the company more than 50% ahead of its nearest rival.

And Chime’s first profitable quarter could indicate that the competitive edge within a mature FinTech space may “look less like insurgent apps and more like fully integrated financial institutions built on modern infrastructure,” PYMNTS added.