Chip - Is this company FCA regulated and safe to use for savings?

richardnadin7

Hi all
Yesterday I opened a Chip+1 saving account following the MSE email on Tuesday night (08/12/20) which notified of the code to allow you to open an account and get 1.25% interest.
The account opened fine, but when I tried to deposit £5k it got blocked twice by verified by visa and then again by the Nationwide fraud team. After a lengthy conservation with verified by visa and then Nationwide, they said Chip were not regulate by FCA and it would be at my own risk if I wanted to deposit any funds with them.
Has anyone had any dealing with this company before or know whether it is safe to do so?
Many thanks
Rick

eskbanker

The weekly email item links to https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/savings-accounts-best-interest/#chip, which explains that the ultimate destination of the funds is FSCS protected even if Chip itself isn't:

The money you put in is fully UK savings safety protected. Chip has partnered with ClearBank to run its Chip+1 account. As ClearBank has a full UK banking licence, money held there gets the normal UK savings safety protection like other savings.

JGB1955

I had a similar problem with Nationwide and Tandem - decided the aggravation wasn't worth it and sent the money to my Principality Websaver at 0.8% instead.

Brewer20

Hmm! nothing to do with Chip but definitely Nationwide as mentioned more than once in this thread.
My payment was blocked going to a new Virgin Money account, they didn't like the fact that I had already sent two small payments then a larger third payment, total only £1600. Two lengthy phone calls to their fraud dept, had to unlock access to my account.
Looked at Chip, not sure I'll bother with it myself.

Byzar

so, you need to pay a fee if you want to save up to £5000? or stick it with £2000 and no fee? I could not find on their website about this fee what I found on moneysavingexpert 

diggingdude

Lloyds keep refusing it for me. For £2k I can't be bothered 

prestonmike

I signed up today, the original transfer from Halifax was refused, then got a text from Halifax asking if it was me trying to make the transaction, once confirmed the money transferred

mrkds

I signed up yesterday. The process for linking bank account and making deposits is a bit faffy compared to a normal savings account. My deposit of £2000 with my Halifax debit card kept getting declined. Depositing in £1000 chunks worked though. 

One think I noticed, on the free ChipLite plan, its telling me I can save up to £5k with the 1.25 %rate. The MSE article says the limit it £2k. I tried adding an extra £1k which was accepted. Can anyone else confirm? 

I'm still not decided if I should use this or put my money in PBs.... I'm giving it a go though 

DireEmblem

Its meant to be a limit of 2k on the Lite plan, or 5k on the AI plan.

What I think you could do, is link Chip to a spare bank card with nil balance, and take advantage that your first £100 autosave is free.

If its unable to save, because its a spare card with a nil balance, you should meet the T&C, and not be charged the £1.50 fee every 4 weeks.

Its also a bit odd - its an account with diminishing returns really as the 1.25% bonus is non compounding, so be careful when you time your withdrawal.

mrkds

Well i have 3k of an apparant 5k allowance in my Lite account (see screenshot). I guess will find out for sure when I get my first interest payment... 

Byzar

mrkds said:

Well i have 3k of an apparant 5k allowance in my Lite account (see screenshot). I guess will find out for sure when I get my first interest payment... 

probably is for 28 days after using the code MSE21