Halifax ISA Saver - How good is it?

wannalot

Hello

I'm new here, and for the very first time trying to get a bit of a grip on what I do with my money. I'm pretty clueless, so I hope you will forgive some daft questions.

Over the past 5 years or so, I have had a Halifax ISA, for no other reason than that I have always banked with Halifax. By the end of the last financial year (after fully using my cash ISA allowance), I had £12714, and earned £437 in interest on this. Is this a good return? I really have no idea how to work out what the interest rate on this was.

I now have £15400 in the ISA and I intend to put in another £1300 in order to use up my whole allowance, so it would be too late for me to change for this year, but I'm just curious as to whether I should change ISA provider?

debbie42

wannalot wrote: »

Over the past 5 years or so, I have had a Halifax ISA, for no other reason than that I have always banked with Halifax. By the end of the last financial year (after fully using my cash ISA allowance), I had £12714, and earned £437 in interest on this. Is this a good return? I really have no idea how to work out what the interest rate on this was.

It depends on when you put your allowance in, but assuming you put it in at the beginning of the year, then the interest paid works out at:
437 / 12714 = 0.034 approx.
This is around 3.4%, which is not a good rate at all.


If you put the cash in later, then it would work out at a higher rate, but you should be aware of the rate currently being paid, or you can't really compare it with others accounts.

It isn't too late to transfer your ISA this year at all. You can transfer an ISA at any time. This time of year should theoretically be easier as there shouldn't be such a backlog of accounts to service. You'd need to find an account which accepts transfers in, that's all. Have a look at Kazza's thread for a list of available accounts.

I transferred from the Halifax a while back as the rate just wasn't competitive. If you had £16K in your ISA then each extra 1% rate over a year would equate to £160, which is not to be sniffed at, so it's well worth your time to shop around for the best deal.

debbie42

I just had a quick look at the rates, and Halifax have a
variable rate ISA saver paying 3.71%
and an
ISA saver direct paying 5%

From your earlier post you may be on the 3.71% rate which is, quite frankly, rubbish.
If you transferred in house to the direct version you'd immediately be earning better interest, and it's reasonably easy to find ISAs paying 6% + elsewhere which do accept transfers in.

Milarky

Halifax have the nerve to dump your fixed rate ISA with them into an an 'ISA saver' on maturity unless you tell them otherwise. This is just a cheap trick to take advatage of people as no one would willingly choose the ISA Saver account.

Given my Fixed rate funds had been in an ISA Saver Direct immediately prior to Fixed Rate investment you'd think they would assume you wanted them transferred back to that afterwards wouldn't you?