Chime Checking and Savings Review

In this Chime Checking and Savings Review f, we’re going to break down every feature of the Chime checking and savings platform to help you decide if this is a good financial tool for you in 2023. I want to take a deep dive into the checking and savings platforms since there are some new additions that you’ll want to be aware of. So on the saving side of things, you’ve got no monthly fees, no minimum balance requirements, or any of that crap, plus if you’re eligible, you have spotted me where they will spot you up to $200 on debit card purchases and cash withdrawals without any overdraft fees at all.

Compare that to some of the traditional banks, which charge $30 or more per overdraft, and that’s pretty awesome. You also have access to their roundup savings tool, where they will round up your purchases on your Chime Visa debit card to the nearest $2 and automatically set that money aside in your savings accounts.

Plus, they also have a newer feature called “Save when I get paid,” which allows you to automatically transfer a percentage of every direct deposited paycheck into your savings accounts. But perhaps one of the biggest updates is the recently increased 2% annual percentage yield that you will earn on your savings balance.

Now, remember that Chime is partnered with Bancorp Bank as well as Stride Bank, which offer banking services behind the scenes. So while 2% is not the highest APY in the industry right now, it is certainly near the top and absolutely crushes traditional banks, who usually pay you next to nothing in interest.

But switching over to the checking side of things, this is where some of the cooler features come into play. Obviously, to start, you’re going to get a Chime Visa debit card that allows you to make purchases and once again take advantage of that roundup savings tool that we talked about earlier, where if you spend, say, $4.55 on coffee for example, then they will round up that purchase to $5 and automatically deposit that extra $0.45 into your savings account.

The checking account also has no monthly fees, no minimum balance requirements, or any of that crap, and you have access to their network of over 60,000 free ATMs at some of the most popular stores like Target, Walgreens, CVS, and a ton of others. To give you some perspective, that is more ATMs than the top 3 national banks combined, so if you’re concerned about going fully online with your banking platform, you really have nothing to worry about.

And as we mentioned earlier, the spot feature also applies to cash withdrawals, so as long as you were eligible for that “spot” feature, you were able to withdraw cash worry-free without incurring that overdraft fee. Plus, Chime has now partnered with Walgreens and offers free cash deposits at over 8500 locations nationwide, so you can walk into Walgreens and deposit up to $1,000 per day or $10,000 per month in cash directly into your Chime account.

Now, if you deposit cash at retail locations other than Walgreens, there may sometimes be a small fee, but just having that option to deposit cash is another reason why you should feel comfortable leaving your traditional brick-and-mortar bank in the dust.

With your checking account, you’re also able to get paid up to 2 days early with direct deposit, meaning if you usually get paid on Fridays, you’ll now get paid on Wednesdays. And remember that setting up direct deposit comes with several additional benefits including the ability to get your federal tax return up to 5 days early which is pretty awesome so if you are going to use the Chime platform then I do highly recommend that you use direct deposit.

Chime also offers free peer-to-peer transfers to pretty much any bank account, even if it isn’t a Chime account. That means that as long as the individual that you’re sending money to has a valid debit card in the US then they are able to claim the money that you send to them without either of you incurring any kind of fee plus when sending money between two different Chime users these transfers are instantaneous and you don’t have to pay any kind of instant transfer fee as you do with other peer-to-peer transfer platforms.

All of the money in this account is fully FDIC insured up to $250,000 through their bank partners, and while I have never actually had to call Chime’s customer support, they do offer 24-7 live support, allowing you to talk to a real human being in real-time right through the app, and you can even get a phone number where you can talk to a real human.

I know that might not sound that exciting, but if you’ve used some other online financial tools then you know what a big deal it is to have an actual phone number that you can call and talk to a real human. In terms of security and control, again, you’ve got nothing to worry about here with that FDIC insurance, which is provided by their banking partners, Bancorp Bank, and Stride Bank, including the ability to toggle international transactions on and off and even freeze your entire debit card right from within the Chime app. Plus, you’ll receive real-time alerts for your income and expenses to keep you up to date on what’s happening with your money.

Now that the debit card is a Visa card, you also get Visa zero liability protection, and of course, they also have security features that you would come to expect like two-factor authentication and even biometric logins. Now the topic of this blog post is specifically the checking and savings accounts, so next, I really want to talk about what makes this product truly unique. 

But first I will mention that Chime does offer an incredibly unique credit builder secured Visa credit card which allows you to build your credit without an annual fee or interest, without any kind of minimum security deposit and you can apply without a credit check.

Again, not the topic of this blog post, but going back to the checking and savings accounts, what is the biggest differentiator here, and what really sets Chime apart from the many other banking platforms that are currently available? How Chime can change your financial life The word I kept coming back to is simplicity.

Many of today’s most popular financial technology platforms are fine, and they offer great features, but for your average everyday consumer, it can often feel incredibly cluttered and, in a lot of cases, really overwhelming.

Even as someone who reviews financial platforms for a living, I often have to spend hours digging through new platforms’ menus and features and all of that junk just to figure out some basic functionality. And while I realize that platform complexity is totally a personal preference, if you are looking for a sleek and simple banking experience from your smartphone, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a better option than Chime.

All of the products that we’ve talked about in this blog post can be accessed from the exact same application and the app as a whole is just a very simplistic design showing you your account balances, recent transactions, a few basic menus for the different features that we’ve talked about and that’s pretty much it.

There are no overwhelming advertisements that you have to sort through or submenus with submenus; it’s just your basic checking and savings accounts in a clean and easy-to-understand package, and for most consumers, what else could you ask for? Plus Chime also has some great educational resources on its website, including its own blog, a help center with an FAQ section, and an abundance of easy-to-digest resources to get you up and running with this platform as fast as possible.

But also, having worked with the team at Chime in the past and a lot of other individuals in the financial technology space, I can confidently tell you that as odd as it sounds, their hearts are really in the right place. So not that that is necessarily a tangible feature of this platform, but it’s always nice to know that a company whose products and services you are using does have its heart in the right place, which in my opinion is much too rare in the financial sector.

So taking all of those factors into account, who is the Chime checking in on savings platform 4? Is it still a competitive option in 2023? And most importantly, is it a good option for you? Well, ultimately, you’re going to have to answer that last question on your own, but from my experience, it is a great choice for anyone who’s looking to leave their traditional bank in the dust and just wants an easy-to-learn online banking platform with all of the industry-leading features that we’ve all come to expect.

No, it’s not necessarily going to be the most robust and advanced banking tool, and outside of the products that we talked about in this blog post, they don’t offer anything like investing services or many other financial products, but for a basic understanding of money coming in and money going out, Chime gets a huge thumbs up from me. This is just my opinion, so I’d love to know what you think of the Chime checking in savings account down in the comment section and what your favorite feature of this platform currently is.