If you use Chime banking, you would have across the Chime Round up feature which helps you automate savings habits. If you are curious to know how does Chime Round up works with all its features including Chime Round up bonus, you are on the right post to get the complete details.
To many of us, savings does not come naturally. What happens more frequently is that we get our paycheck deposit and then start spending on our daily purchases and saving never gets prioritized.
Actually, it should be the reverse -you should save a fixed percentage first from your paycheck and the balance amount after saving should be available for purchases and expenses.
Chime actually offers you the ability to automate your saving habit by enabling a system of auto-saving money at both legs -i.e.
- When you receive your paycheck money- You have an option to auto-transfer 10 %of direct deposit amount directly into the Chime auto savings account (the direct deposit amount should be $500 or more)
- When you spend the money on your Chime Debit card- You have an option to auto-deposit any change amount into your Chime savings account using the Round-Up feature
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How Does Chime Round Up Work
If you have activated Chime Round Up, every purchase you make using your Chime Debit Card gets rounded up to the nearest dollar amount and the rounded-up change is automatically deposited in your Chime Saving Bank account.
Each such round-up is transferred from your Chime Checking Account to your Savings Account on the next day when the transaction is settled.
The savings account also gives you a 0.5% Annual Percentage Yield (APY), to help compound those savings.
E.g. if you spend $4.32 on a transaction, Chime will round the transaction to the nearest dollar i.e. $5, and then auto-deposit 68 cents into your savings account.
While this may not seem much, it can add up over time. Chime Round-Up does not put any limit on the number of transactions.
Again this feature should not drive up your spend, but if you shift your other cash transactions on Chime Debit card with round up enabled, it does help you create a small steady saving pool.
It depends more on the number of transactions than the amount per transaction. Also, one good feature is Chime does not place any limit to the
Do note that Chime Round up feature works only on purchases using Chime Debit Card. It does not work if you are using the Chime Credit Builder Card.
While Chime is not the only bank to support Round Up, it has played a role in making this feature mainstream. Bank of America has a similar time-tested feature “Keep the Change” which was also quite successful. There are other banks and fintechs that are offering this round-up feature, however, the friction-free process of managing the accounts using the Chime App adds to its appeal.
How to Activate Chime Round Up
- Open the Chime app and log in.
- Next tap on Settings -3 dots icon on Android or gear icon, if you are using iPhone
- Next, Scroll down the page and navigate to the Savings section.
- Turn on the toggle for Automatic Savings.
If it’s grey, Automatic Savings is off. If it’s green, Automatic Savings is on.
What is Chime Round Up Bonus?
Chime earlier also gave a weekly bonus by depositing an additional amount equal to 10% of the rounded-up amount transferred to your savings account.
This would up show up in your statement as “Round Up Bonus” in addition to the “Round Up Transfers”
However, it seems this has now been discontinued.
Chime Round Up Not Working
If you are facing issues of Chime Round Up Not Working, you can look at the following ways to identify and resolve the issue:
- Make Sure the transaction is done on the Chime Debit Card and not Chime Credit Builder Card which does not provide Round Up feature
- Make sure that Chime Round Up is activated on the Chime App
- Make sure that transaction is not showing under pending. It usually takes a day for the round up to be reflected once the transaction is showing the status as completed
Wrap Up
Chime Round Up continues to be one of the loved features in the Chime mobile banking app. It does help to have some money set aside automatically for a rainy day. And those small deposits do add up over a period of time, if you are using the card frequently in place of cash, even for small transactions. Do remember it’s not the value of the transaction but the number of transactions that help you build a good saving rate with Round Up.
