Chetwood Financial

Chetwood Financial, established in 2016 by co-founders Andy Mielczarek and Mark Hranek, operates as a UK-licensed digital bank with a distinct strategic focus. Mielczarek, the CEO, brings extensive experience from the retail banking sector, including a significant tenure at HSBC, while Hranek, the COO, has a background in financial services and technology. Their combined expertise underpins the company's approach to disrupting conventional banking models. The firm secured a full banking license in late 2018, a pivotal achievement that enabled it to begin offering its own savings and lending products.

The company's business model is bifurcated. Primarily, it designs and offers financial products directly to consumers through a multi-brand strategy, targeting specific, often underserved, market segments rather than pursuing a broad, cross-selling approach. This has resulted in the creation of distinct product lines such as the Wave credit card, designed for building credit, and savings accounts under the SmartSave and SuperSave brands. This approach allows for tailored features and pricing to meet the precise needs of different customer profiles.

Secondly, Chetwood Financial engages in Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS), providing white-labelled financial products for other non-financial companies. This enables other businesses to embed regulated lending and savings products into their own ecosystems without the substantial investment and regulatory burden of becoming a bank themselves. The firm generates revenue through the net interest margin on its lending and savings products and from fees associated with its BaaS partnerships. Its digitally native infrastructure allows for lower operating costs and greater agility compared to traditional incumbent banks, forming a key part of its value proposition.

Keywords: digital banking, BaaS, consumer lending, savings accounts, credit cards, fintech, financial services, challenger bank, white-label banking, embedded finance