Chetwood Bank

Chetwood Bank is a UK savings brand, offering accounts including an Easy Access account and a 35 Day Notice Account¹. It also trades as LiveLend for loans, and as CHL Mortgages and ModaMortgages for mortgage lending, so those products sit under different names¹.

For a saver, the practical points are these. Chetwood Bank takes deposits and offers savings accounts, including an Easy Access account, and its own site carries the current rates and terms. Deposits are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme up to its limit per person, per firm, and because the trading names share one firm, balances across them count together towards that single limit¹.

This page covers what Chetwood Bank offers savers, how its accounts work, how to contact it and complain, and how your money is protected. It does not quote rates, because rates change and the firm's own site is the place to check them.

What Chetwood Bank offers

Chetwood Bank's consumer-facing product is savings. The firm's own site lists the accounts it offers, including an Easy Access account, with the interest rate, the minimum opening amount and the terms for each¹. Because rates move, and because a rate quoted on any other site may already be out of date, the firm's own product pages are the place to check what is available today.

Savings accounts of this kind work in a straightforward way. You pay money in, the bank pays interest on the balance, and you can usually take money out subject to the account's terms. Easy access accounts let you withdraw without notice or penalty, which is why they typically pay less than accounts that lock your money away for a fixed period. Fixed rate accounts pay a set rate for a set term, and what happens when that term ends varies by provider: some roll the money into an easy access account, some into another fixed term, and some return it to you⁴. If you are weighing up which type suits your circumstances, our guide to savings accounts sets out the differences, and the ISAs guide covers tax-free savings.

Chetwood Bank is not a current account provider, so it is not somewhere to hold your day-to-day banking. If that is what you need, our current accounts guide explains the options, and the banks directory lists providers.

How the accounts work day to day

Chetwood Bank is an online and app-based operation rather than a branch network. That matters for how you use it: you open and manage the account remotely, and you deal with the firm by phone, email or post rather than across a counter. Branch banking has been shrinking across the UK for years, with the number of branches roughly halving between 1986 and 2014 and closures expected to continue, so an account without a branch is now the norm rather than the exception⁵.

Opening a savings account normally involves proving who you are and where you live. Banks are required to carry out identity checks, and if they cannot complete the "know your customer" checks required by the money laundering rules, they are required to close the account⁶. That is a legal obligation on the bank, not a decision about you personally, and it applies across the market.

When you open or switch an account, the bank has to give you certain information before and during the relationship. Under the rules, that includes details about the firm, comparable services, the terms and conditions and any changes to them, the rate of interest payable on a deposit and how and when interest is calculated and applied, any charges and any changes to them, when funds will be made available, cancellation rights, how to complain, and the timescales for each stage of cheque clearing⁶. If you are unsure what an account costs or how interest is worked out, that information should be in what the firm has given you.

Contacting Chetwood Bank and complaining

Chetwood Bank's contact details are on its own website, and that is the starting point for any query about an account, a payment or a change of details¹. For routine matters, such as updating an address or asking about a statement, the firm's app or online service is usually the quickest route.

If something has gone wrong, the process is the same as with any UK bank. Complain to the firm first. Under the rules, the firm must tell you how to complain, and it has a set period to respond⁶. If you are unhappy with the final response, or eight weeks pass without one, you can take the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service, which is free to consumers and can order a firm to put things right.

Complaints about current accounts are common across the industry, which gives a sense of how often banking disputes end up being escalated: 7,803 current account complaints were opened in the first quarter of 2025/26⁷. That figure covers the whole market, not Chetwood Bank, but it shows that the ombudsman route is well used and not unusual.

If your complaint is about a payment that went wrong, or about a scam, there are separate routes. Authorised push payment scams, where someone is tricked into sending money, are covered by rules that require firms to publish performance data on how they handle them⁸. Our guide to scams and fraud explains how to report a scam and what reimbursement rules apply.

How your money is protected

Deposits with Chetwood Bank are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, which protects eligible deposits held with UK banks up to its limit per person, per firm³. The scheme exists precisely for the situation where a bank fails and cannot repay depositors. The current limit is published on the FSCS website, and it is worth checking there rather than relying on a figure quoted anywhere else.

The important detail for a firm with several trading names is how the limit is counted. Because Chetwood Bank, LiveLend, CHL Mortgages, ModaMortgages, SmartSave, BetterBorrow and Wave all sit under one firm, money you hold across those names is added together when working out what is covered, rather than each brand getting its own separate limit¹. If you hold savings with Chetwood Bank and also have a product under another of the firm's trading names, the two balances count towards the same limit.

Protection limits can differ in one specific circumstance: where a deposit is made with the branch of a UK bank in another Member State, the limits may be higher or lower than those that apply in the UK³. That is unlikely to affect a saver using Chetwood Bank's UK accounts, but it is worth knowing if you bank with a UK firm through an overseas branch.

Beyond deposit protection, the general consumer protections apply. The Financial Ombudsman Service can look at complaints about the firm, and the rules on information require the firm to tell you about the terms, charges and cancellation rights that apply to your account⁶. Our guide to consumer protection explains how these safeguards fit together, and the regulation guide covers who makes the rules.

Where Chetwood Bank sits in the market

Chetwood Bank is one of a large number of UK banks and building societies competing for savings. The market is concentrated: 92% of personal current accounts, 85% of mortgages and 88% of small business accounts are held with commercial banks⁹. Savings is a more crowded field, with challenger banks and building societies alongside the large incumbents, and savers commonly move money between providers to follow rates.

For anyone comparing savings accounts, the practical questions are the rate, how quickly you can get your money out, whether the account is a fixed term or easy access, and whether the provider is covered by the deposit protection scheme. Our savings guide covers how to compare accounts, and the banks directory lists providers.

If you are opening your first account, or switching from another provider, the process is set out in our guide to opening, switching or closing a bank account. MoneyHelper also publishes free guidance on opening, switching and closing accounts⁶.

If you are considering a Chetwood Bank account

The decision about where to hold savings comes down to a few things: the rate on offer, how accessible the money needs to be, and whether the provider is covered by the deposit protection scheme. Chetwood Bank takes deposits, and its accounts are covered by the scheme up to the limit¹.

Rates are not quoted here because they change, and the firm's own site carries the current figures along with the terms for each account¹. Before opening an account, it is worth reading the terms, checking how withdrawals work, and confirming how the interest is calculated and paid, all of which the firm is required to set out⁶.

If you have had credit problems in the past, that is unlikely to stop you opening a savings account, because savings accounts do not normally involve a credit check in the way a loan or credit card does. Basic bank accounts, which are a different product offered by high street banks, are designed for people who might not pass a credit check or who have no account elsewhere, and all high street banks offer bankruptcy-friendly basic bank accounts¹⁰. Our current accounts guide explains how those work.