If you're not a techie, this idea that "It's your personal money API" may sound like CHUMP is some weird internet STD — but don't worry, it's not contagious.
If you spend any time on the internet, you're using APIs constantly, you just might not know it. When you open Uber, it pulls from the Google Maps API. When you pay for something online, there's a good chance the Stripe API runs the transaction. Your social feeds, your weather app, your delivery tracking are all leveraging APIs. Most of the time you're on the internet, you're talking to an API even if you don't realize it.
So, what's an API?
Here's a simple explanation:
Imagine you're at a restaurant and you want cookies, but you can't go into the kitchen, so you ask the waiter. The waiter can go in the kitchen, so he goes, grabs the cookies, and brings them back. You don't need to know how the kitchen works. You don't need to know where the cookies are. You just ask, and the snack shows up.
An API is the waiter, and that's exactly what CHUMP does, except the kitchen is your bank account(s).
Right now, there's no easy way to open your phone, text a number, and ask, "How much is in my Bank of America checking account? What do I owe on my Chase card? What's in my Wells Fargo savings?" You can find all of it, but you have to log into three different banks, click through three 2FAs, three different apps, and stitch the picture together yourself.
It takes exponentially longer to get a less clear picture of your money than just texting CHUMP: "Yo, what'd I spend yesterday? How much do I owe on my credit card?", and CHUMP goes to the kitchen (your bank accounts), where you can't easily get into, and brings back the cookies (the answers). That's it. A personal API for your money.
Why it just feels like texting
When you text CHUMP, it just feels like you're talking to CHUMP. Just like how your weather app is quietly pulling from weather.com's API, but you never feel like you're talking to weather.com — you feel like you're talking to your weather app. That seamlessness is the whole beauty of an API that you can text to talk to your money.