
Service messages explained - i.e. "Why did I get this email?"
Summary
As a regulated financial business we are obliged to send you important updates about your Chip account (and any products and services you have with us) via email.
You can’t unsubscribe from service messages as they contain essential information you need to know, some of which is a regulatory requirement.
Why email and not another method?
We use email for service messages as we need to give you a permanent record in your inbox of any changes to your service.
Other forms of communication are either not “durable” (e.g. push notifications and in-app messages disappear once you’ve read them), or get updated after they’ve been put live (e.g. blogs, web pages, banners).
So, to fulfill our regulatory obligations we use email for all important service messages.
What’s an important service message?
All service messages will be about changes to our services or products that you use. These will never contain any marketing for any product you’re not using.
For example, these are all service messages:
- Updates to terms and conditions or our privacy notice
- Changes to your savings and investment accounts
- Notifications of important deadlines (e.g. our final deposit dates around tax year end, or rate boost expiries)
- Annual Shareholder update
- Emails from our Customer Support team
However, these are not service messages:
- Any inducement to open/use a product or service you don’t already have/use
- Notifications of higher savings rates available through promotions
- Newsletters and general updates
Note that in some service communications we may invite you to consider alternative accounts, products or services if it is in your interest (e.g. something like “your boosted rate has ended, and you might wish to consider moving your money to another account within Chip”), but we wouldn’t send you a service message marketing anything to you outside of this context.
“I understand, but you’ve already notified me!”
As a regulated financial business there are a few more rules we need to follow than other companies you might subscribe to.
We often need to show to our regulators that we are doing everything we reasonably can to ensure you have seen and understood important updates to our service.
So, sometimes you might receive multiple service notifications about the same thing. But generally we do our best to make sure we’re not sending you an unnecessary number of communications.
"Can I choose how Chip communicates with me?"
At the moment you can only choose between being opted into marketing communications or not.
We are currently working on building a “preference centre” that will enable you to tailor the sort of communications you receive from us (i.e. if you want monthly newsletters, but nothing else). We hope to offer this later this year.
However, as we’ve covered above, you will always receive service messages from us about products and services you are using.
"How can I stop getting service messages?"
The only way to stop getting service messages from us altogether is to fully close your Chip account.
You can do this in your app, by heading to your ‘Profile’ tab and looking for ‘Delete account’.
Please note - if you simply uninstall the app without closing your account, you may continue to receive service messages.