Is Chime safe to use?

Chime integrates 10 third-party SDKs spanning infrastructure, analytics, and payments. It collects data linked to your identity including Purchases, Financial Info, Location, and Contact Info and 7 more categories. It does not include any advertising or attribution SDKs. Whether this is acceptable depends on your personal privacy preferences.

What permissions does Chime need?

Chime requests 10 iOS permissions: Camera, Microphone, Contacts, Photo Library, Location (When In Use), Location (Always), Location (Always & When In Use), Speech Recognition, Face ID, and Bluetooth.

What data does Chime collect?

According to its App Store privacy label, Chime collects data linked to your identity including Purchases, Financial Info, Location, Contact Info, Contacts, User Content, Identifiers, Usage Data, Sensitive Info, Diagnostics, and Other Data.

How many SDKs does Chime have?

Chime integrates 10 third-party SDKs. 2 for analytics, 2 for payments, 3 for infrastructure, and 1 for other. None are for advertising or attribution.

Does Chime use Google SDKs?

Yes. Chime includes 3 Google or Firebase SDKs: Firebase Core, Google Utilities, and Firebase Core Internal. These are used for cloud infrastructure and services, not advertising.

Does Chime access your location?

Yes. Chime requests location access. The developer states: "Chime will use your location for map-based features and to protect your account. Other Chime features may use your location only with additional disclosure.".

Does Chime access your camera or microphone?

Chime requests access to both your camera and microphone. The developer says camera access is for "This allows you to deposit checks into your account or easily add a debit card". Microphone access is for "To verify your identity, allow Chime to access your microphone". These permissions are only active when you grant them in iOS Settings.

Does Chime access your contacts?

Yes. Chime requests access to your contacts. The developer states: "Your contacts are sent to Chime's servers so that you can find friends, invite them to Chime, and send and request money from them. See Chime's Privacy Notice to learn more.".

Does Chime run in the background?

Yes. Chime registers 3 background modes, which means it can perform certain tasks when you're not actively using it.

What are some alternatives to Chime?

Other finance apps include EarnIn , Albert , Allstate , Amex , Atlas , and Autopilot . Each app takes a different approach to finance and varies in its data collection and SDK usage.

Finance · Privacy report

Chime – Mobile Banking

Free · ★4.8 · Chime Financial, Inc.

Is Chime safe?

It collects a lot of your data itself.

Our take. Its own App Store privacy label declares Chime links 11 categories of your data to your identity, including purchases, financial info, location and contact info. That collection, more than any outside tracker, is the story here.

Privacy footprint · vs 80 financeHeavy

Trackers from other companies2 · some

typical finance: 3.5

Data the app links to you11 types · a lot

typical finance: 6 · from its own privacy label

What it collects about you

Chime links 11 categories of your data to you.

From the developer's own App Store privacy label. These are the kinds of data Chime ties to your identity.

PurchasesFinancial InfoLocationContact InfoContactsUser ContentIdentifiersUsage DataSensitive InfoDiagnosticsOther Data

Who else is inside

It carries trackers from 2 companies.

Third-party SDKs found in the app, matched to the company that publishes each. Present in the code; we do not observe what they transmit.

🇺🇸GoogleAnalytics

Firebase, AdMob and Google analytics SDKs, built to record how you use the app and serve ads.

SDK

🏢Other third partiesanalytics

A third-party SDK.

SDK

How it compares

Where it sits among finance.

Every one of these apps we have scanned, on the two measures above: third-party trackers it carries (across) and data it links to you on its own label (up). Toward the top right is more invasive.

Each dot is one finance app. Chime sits high on the left: it collects a lot itself but uses few outside trackers.

The evidence

What it's built from.

All 10 SDKs in the app, grouped by what they are for. 2 are third-party trackers.

2analytics

8standard libraries

2 of the 10 are third-party trackers. The rest are the app's own code and standard open-source building blocks.

Show the full SDK list

GoogleAnalytics · USA

Firebase Core

Other third partiesanalytics

Visa Analytics

Standard libraries8 · on-device

The app's own code plus open-source interface, storage and networking libraries.

How we know this

Counterspy downloads the app from the App Store and statically analyzes its compiled binary. Embedded SDKs are matched against a signature database and resolved to the company that operates each. We also read the developer's App Store privacy label, which lists the data the app says it collects and links to you. We do not run the app or intercept its traffic, so we report capabilities present in the code and the developer's own disclosures, not proven transmission. We assess privacy and data collection, not malware, security flaws, or developer intent. Reports are automated and never edited for payment. Scan v5.320.0, 2026-04-01.

Third-party trackers are advertising, analytics and attribution SDKs detected by static signature matching. Presence shows a capability is compiled in, not that it ran or transmitted data.
"Data the app links to you" is the count of data categories the developer declares as Data Linked To You in its App Store privacy label. Labels are self-reported and not verified by Apple.
Comparison across the 80 finance in our corpus. Trackers: median 3.5. Data linked to you: median 6.