Leading U.S. digital bank Chime is increasingly turning to a conventional customer acquisition strategy in financial services: cash-back rewards. People who sign up for Chime’s secured credit card and direct-deposit at least $3,000 into their Chime checking account each month will qualify for a new, free rewards program called Chime Prime. In one spending category of their choice—such as groceries, gas or travel—they’ll get 5% cash back on up to $1,500 a month in expenses, capping the reward at $75 per month.

Last fall, the fintech company began offering 1.5% cash back on two pre-determined categories. Chime’s chief corporate affairs officer Jennifer Kuperman says the new rewards scheme will deliver higher cash-back rewards for customers. Some of the other perks that come with Chime Prime include a 3.75% interest rate on cash in a Chime savings account and access to hundreds of airport lounges through the Priority Pass network.

Chime’s credit card is a secured card, and the spending limit equals the amount of cash held in a Chime checking account. If customers direct-deposit less than $3,000 per month but at least $200, they’ll qualify for a lower tier of rewards called Chime Plus, which comes with 2% cash back in one spending category and a 3% interest rate on savings accounts. Since Chime doesn’t have a bank charter, its cards are issued by its bank partners, Bancorp and Stride.

Traditional banks have offered secured credit cards with cash-back rewards for years. U.S. Bank’s Cash+ card offers 5% cash back in two categories of spend, 2% cash back on an additional category and 1% back on all other eligible purchases. Discover’s “it” card gives 2% cash back at gas stations and restaurants and 1% on all other purchases. (Discover was acquired by Capital One last year but still operates under the Discover name). Capital One’s Quicksilver Secured card gives 1.5% cash back on all spending. All of these cards let consumers carry a balance into the next month and charge interest, while Chime’s card needs to be paid off in full each month.

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Launched over a decade ago, Chime gained popularity by offering fee-free checking accounts and has since expanded to offer features like small-dollar loans. It went public in June 2025, and its new Chime Prime tier is aimed at speeding up new-customer growth, a metric closely watched by Wall Street investors. “We’re a growth company,” says Chime’s 53-year-old cofounder and CEO Chris Britt. As of December 2025, the company had 9.5 million active customers, up 1.5 million from the year prior. It predicts it will add 1.4 million more in 2026. Chime’s overall revenue rose 31% last year, and it forecasts it will grow 20% to 22% in 2026 while also being profitable on a generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) basis.

Chief growth officer Vineet Mehra says that in the third and fourth quarter of last year, Chime opened more checking accounts than any financial institution in the U.S., citing consumer surveys done by J.D. Power. The surveys indicated Chime accounted for 13% of all checking account openings in the last quarter of 2025. For years, Chime has been trying to move upmarket and expand beyond middle-income customers. Mehra says Chime Prime caters to people earning $75,000 or more a year, the company’s fastest growing user segment.

At about $19 per share, Chime’s stock still trades well below the $27 it went public at. Its market value is hovering around $7 billion, less than one-third of the $25 billion it fetched as a private company during fintech’s 2021 bubble. Regarding the stock’s performance, Britt says, “All I can say is that we feel good about our results.” He adds that macroeconomic uncertainty may be affecting Chime’s share price but that his company is embracing AI to try to offer attractive products while keeping costs low.

A key part of Britt’s goals for Chime Prime is to get people to make Chime their primary bank account, a strategy he has pursued since founding the company. People who direct-deposit their paycheck are stickier customers who use more of the app’s features.

Chime originally launched in 2014 with just a debit card and first released a secured credit card in 2020. Now it wants more people to use its credit card, since it makes more money that way. Chime earns most of its revenue on interchange, the 2% fees merchants pay when consumers swipe their credit and debit cards. Due to Visa and Mastercard’s interchange rules, credit card transactions carry higher fees for merchants. In 2025, Chime’s customers made $134 billion in purchases on their Chime cards, and 17% of that total was spent on the company’s credit card. Chime expects that share to increase this year.

Britt expects Chime Prime to be one of the company’s biggest growth drivers in 2026, alongside other upcoming features and its Chime Enterprise unit, which aims to get employers to offer Chime products to their employees. Among the new products Chime plans to launch this year are investing accounts, joint accounts and a personal financial assistant called Jade.

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