Chime is turning a seven-year-plus bank partnership into vertical integration
- Chime is bringing banking in-house with its $590 million acquisition of Stride, gaining control over the charter, infrastructure, and economics behind its growing product suite.
- The neobank is also betting that tighter connections across payments, credit, liquidity, and investing can make the broader platform more valuable.
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Chime is turning a seven-year-plus bank partnership into vertical integration
Chime’s longest-running partnership is becoming an acquisition.
Chime’s model rested on a clear separation of roles. The neobank owned the customer relationship, technology, and product experience; a partner bank supplied the regulated infrastructure underneath it.
Now Chime is bringing that back-end infrastructure in-house. The firm will acquire Stride Bank for $590 million in cash, renaming the Oklahoma-based institution to Chime Bank, N.A., and making it a wholly owned subsidiary. Stride has been Chime’s bank partner for more than seven years. The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2027, subject to regulatory approvals.
The move comes as Chime itself has become a different kind of business. It now has more than 10 million active members and a product portfolio spanning payments, credit, liquidity, and investing. Its ambition has expanded, too: The firm increasingly wants to be the account customers use as the center of their financial lives.
At this point, the bank underneath the experience becomes harder to treat as someone else’s problem.
When the partner becomes part of the platform
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