Chime Posts First Profitable Quarter as US Neobank Expands Into Credit, Payroll and AI
Chime has reported a record first quarter for 2026, posting its first GAAP-profitable quarter as a public company and signalling how far the US neobank category has moved beyond the basic spending-account playbook that defined its early years. Revenue rose 25% year-on-year to $647.4 million, net income reached $53 million for an 8% net margin, and adjusted EBITDA climbed to $119 million at an 18% margin, a 13 percentage-point improvement on the same period last year.
The San Francisco-based challenger added nearly 700,000 net new active members in the quarter to reach a record 10.2 million, growth of 19% year-on-year. Chief executive Chris Britt said Chime was leading all US financial institutions in new account openings and was running "50% ahead of our closest competitor" on that metric. Average revenue per active member ticked up to $263, while purchase volume across the platform hit $39 billion.
From spending account to financial operating system
The headline numbers matter less than what is driving them. Chime is increasingly looking like a vertically integrated consumer financial services platform rather than a fee-free debit card with a slick app. Higher-margin product lines are now doing real work on the income statement.
MyPay, the company's earned wage access product, is now generating more than $400 million in annualised revenue, putting Chime squarely into payroll and liquidity infrastructure territory traditionally occupied by specialist providers. Instant Loans, the small-dollar credit product launched to give members access to short-term liquidity without resorting to overdraft fees or payday lenders, originated $180 million in the quarter.
The company also rolled out Chime Prime, a new premium membership tier aimed at customers receiving $3,000 or more in monthly direct deposits. The move is a clear push upmarket and a direct challenge to the primary-banking relationships still held by incumbents and by rivals such as SoFi, Varo and Cash App.
Underneath the revenue mix, payments revenue grew 15% to $433 million while platform-related revenue, which captures the higher-margin credit, liquidity and subscription products, jumped 50% to $215 million. That shift in mix is the clearest indicator yet that neobanks in the US are building genuinely diversified financial services franchises.
AI doing the heavy lifting in operations
Chime also leaned heavily into its operational AI story. The company said AI-assisted coding has expanded from 29% to 84% of all shipped code over the past four months, allowing it to ship product faster while keeping headcount growth largely flat. Combined with AI-driven member servicing and risk operations, the message to investors is that the unit economics of running a neobank at scale are improving structurally, not just cyclically.
On the back of the print, management raised full-year 2026 revenue guidance to $2.66 to $2.69 billion, implying 22 to 23% growth, with adjusted EBITDA guided to $416 to $431 million at a 16% margin.
About Chime
Chime is a US consumer financial services company headquartered in San Francisco. It provides banking services to its members through partner banks and has expanded into earned wage access, instant credit, premium membership and AI-powered financial tools. Chime listed publicly on Nasdaq in 2025 under the ticker CHYM.
