“By acquiring Stride Bank, Chime is definitively escaping this compliance bottleneck…
The transaction provides Chime with a quicker path to full-stack ownership rather than jumping through the hoops for a de novo bank charter, a notoriously arduous process…
However, Chime intends to keep its total consolidated assets below the US$10bn threshold for the foreseeable future.
This strategic ceiling preserves its exemption from the Durbin Amendment, allowing the newly-minted Chime Bank to continue collecting the higher debit-card interchange fees that fuel its revenue model.”