It’s no secret that the neobank threat waned in the last few years. Once a major topic of conversation in strategic planning sessions, talk of such competition slowly faded among bankers I spoke with as these fintechs struggled to reach profitability and many shuttered their operations entirely. But now that discourse is back, for one very big reason: Unicorn neobank Chime went public.

Chime’s IPO reignited a conversation about the threat from fintech challengers to traditional banks. The debate is contentious — some see Chime as spend-happy with an unsustainable cost structure, while others see a pioneer. Either way, it is hard to ignore the company completely. More than that, it would be unwise to. In Chime’s public debut last Thursday, it reached a market cap of $14.5 billion.

Many people have written about why Chime matters from a competitive standpoint (and it does) but, more than that, it is part of a movement to change customer expectations in banking. The company built its name on a lack of branches, no fees, and slick experiences that drove its member numbers to 8.6 million as of March 2025. And, per the company’s S-1, 67% of those are in a primary account relationship with Chime. As such, I’d like to talk not about why we should fear Chime but about what we can learn from it.

Here are three points that stand out to me for traditional institutions:

• Create value where it makes sense. There is so much emphasis put on Chime’s wellness products: early wage access, credit building, automatic savings roundups, etc. But what often gets lost is the why of it all. Chime is building financial wellness products because it focuses on customer segments that need those products. That strategy will not always translate. The lesson here is not to run out and add roundup functionality; the lesson is to take a Jobs To Be Done approach to your customers and build differentiated experiences based on their unique needs.
  
  

• Think creatively about the business. By the business, I mean the business of banking. Alex Johnson of Fintech Takes wrote a piece recently about the importance of having a durable non-interest income strategy. Essentially, his argument is that because price optimization is only increasingly on the customer’s side, net interest margin is no longer a sustainable path to profitability. I happen to agree. Chime is a provider making money differently — we can argue about whether its interchange-based approach is wise, but it is the mindset that bankers should take note of.
  
  

• Focus on transparency. One of Chime’s most obvious differentiators is its lack of fees — no minimum balance requirements, no overdraft fees, no foreign transaction fees, etc. But I’d argue this is really about transparency. Customers don’t want to be charged fees unexpectedly or for things they don’t understand. A fully no-fee structure is nice, but it probably goes beyond that. Chime has likely been able to use this initiative to build trust in an area that many consider a pain point. It also puts a great deal of effort into making its offerings relatable and easy to understand, including through its blog, an area where many banks could improve.
  
  

A common thread among these takeaways is they speak to a thoughtfulness that is missing in a lot of board rooms today. One of the arguments I often hear in defense of the status quo is that it is too hard to innovate, because of resources, because of regulation. That defense leapfrogs over strategic themes (like the ones above) to tactical hurdles. As bank executives contemplate Chime — and the fintech industry more broadly — they should examine approaches more than offerings and embrace discussion accordingly.

Ultimately, I am going to refrain from commenting on Chime’s future success. Not because I don’t have an opinion on it, but because in the context of a bank’s strategy, I don’t think it really matters. Competition is always going to be tough, and it’s always going to come from new and unexpected places. What matters more is how that competition changes the game and how the industry responds to it. For bankers, step one is to pay close attention. Step two is to find opportunities to meet the moment.