Choose your bond and apply online, at a branch or by phone. 

You have a 14 day ‘cooling off period’ after you open a bond.

You have a limited time to pay in - the 'deposit window'. This is 14 days from when we open your bond or while the account is still to open to new investors, whichever is longer. Our fixed rate bonds are limited issue (that means they're often only open for a few weeks or months) so if you're interested in one of our accounts, you have to move quickly. 

You can have this paid annually into the bond, or if you’d like to have an income while we look after your money, you can have the interest paid monthly or annually to another account. We pay higher rates in exchange for leaving your savings with us for a while - so you won't usually be able to take money out before the account 'matures'.

We’ll email or write to you at least 14 days before this happens, with details of your options. 

To make things quick and easy, you can manage your options using Online Services, if you’ve registered.

There’ll be a default option – another bond with us. The length of the term will either be shorter, the same or no more than six months longer than the duration of your original account. 

If you want to re-invest your money in the default option, you don’t need to do anything – we’ll automatically re-invest your savings for you. Want to withdraw some or all of your money, close your account or re-invest in one or more of the other options? If you’re registered for Online Services, you can give us your instructions online (we’ll email you all the details so you know exactly how to do this). If you’re not, we’ll send you a letter and Bond Maturity Instruction form by post.

If you’re using Online Services to manage your options, there’s no paper form to send back – just follow the link in the email we send you to give us your instructions. We’ll then email you to confirm we’ve got them.

If you're using a paper instruction form and you want to re-invest all your savings into the default option we’ve offered you, without adding any extra, you don’t need to do anything. We’ll take care of everything for you.

You’ll only need to post it back to us if you want to re-invest into one or more of the other options, add money to your bond(s), take out money, or close your account.

We’ll email or write to you again to confirm what’s happened. If you decide to continue saving with us, you’ll have 21 days once the bond has matured to change your mind and close your new bond(s), or withdraw all or some of the money. 

Check the date your account comes to the end of its fixed term. From that date, you've got another 21 days to change your mind if you want to. So even if we automatically re-invested your money for you (because we didn't hear from you), you can still choose a different option or close your account during that 21-day period.