Inflexibility of ISA's

The_One_Who

opinions4u wrote: »

2) Cash ISAs are overly complex and the Government should make it easier to understand and also to change providers. Allowing withdrawals to be replaced within the same tax year would be a good start. Forcing a certificate to be issued on closure, which the customer can then walk round to a competitor with the cheque would improve the transfer process to a same day moment!

That would only work if you could go in-branch and get it there and then. I had a NS&I cash ISA so would have to close it, wait for them to post me a certificate/cheque and then send that off to the new provider. This would take longer than the week it took for me to transfer my ISA with the current system.

Innys

Perhaps people who find them not worth the effort, shouldn't bother to invest.

Then, the banks would not have as many applications and, therefore, they may pay even higher rates to us who do feel they are worth the bother.

Of course, there's a chance that the banks may feel the contracted market may not warrant an ISA product at all and pull them, but that's a risk I'm willing to take...

Any

opinions4u wrote: »

1) Cash ISAs are a good thing if you are prepared to chase the best rates and prepared to review what rate your getting and transfer to another provider when your rate becomes uncompetitive.

I agree with this quote completely.
But then, even with savings accounts you have to keep chasing the best rates and keep changing..

opinions4u

dunstonh wrote: »

Yes. Calling both ISA was a bad move. You knew where you were when you had PEP and TESSA (although cash ISA is a better overall product than TESSA and PEPs were truly tax free).

Drop the stocks and shares bit as well as that makes people think that you have to use stockmarket investments in the S&S ISA and that isnt the case.



Allowing withdrawals to be replaced would be very hard to monitor. Also, a certificate printed out by the bank on their laser printer would be very easy to copy. The current transfer system is fine, if the provider acts as they should. When you consider that stocks and share ISA transfers go through really quickly, you would think cash would be even quicker. It isnt the process that is at fault. It is the manpower at the provider and the FSA just need to enforce TCF at those bad companies.

I don't think it would be too hard to have a system that works out when the net balance for a tax year hits £3,600.

LongTermLurker

It's a shame that cash ISAs aren't sold in the same way a a Stocks & Shares ISA - in other words, a wrapper.

It ought to be that you could put any deposit account inside an ISA wrapper, rather than the banks actually treating ISAs as accounts in their own right, because that allows them to stifle the rates. Even so, the only way to beat an ISA with a taxable account is to make regular deposits into a high interest regular saver, such as A&L or the Halifax 10%er, but the point is that such a benefit will only last one year before it is lost forever.