The nation's largest mortgage lender, Countrywide Financial Inc., (NYSE: CFC) has notified regulators of its intent to convert its existing national bank charter to a federal savings bank charter to conduct its banking services.

The company said Friday that it had notified the Federal Reserve Board of San Francisco, the Office of the Comptroller of Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision of the intent.

Upon approval of the application, Countrywide Bank N.A. would be converted to a federal savings bank and Countrywide Financial Corp. would become a savings and loan holding company. That would allow it to work with one U.S. regulator, the Office of Thrift Supervision, instead of two.

The company said it plans to announce the timing of the filing of its conversion application with the Office of Thrift Supervision in the near future.

Countrywide started adding the banking option in four Southern California offices in 2005.  Now it has 12 financial centers, with plans to have 30 in California by the end of the year.   "We look for a strong real estate market and a strong local economy," said Countrywide Bank president James Furash. "

A bank that's not a bank: The financial centers aren't bank branches because they don't take cash deposits, don't give out cash and generally don't deal with transactional accounts, like checking accounts.

They do, however, offer FDIC-insured products like certificates of deposit and money market accounts.

The idea is to keep overhead low and pass on the cost savings to customers in the form of high interest rates. The bank is targeting seniors and people on fixed incomes who seek insured deposits, and also people who want to diversify their investments out of equities.

"We are not interested in day-to-day banking products," Furash said, adding that his bank's niche is "rates, access and people."

Countrywide Bank intends to pay more for deposits than the competition pays. To make that model work, Countrywide is making sure the banking operation doesn't get too expensive. The banks will not push checking accounts.