Who's the fastest?

sofa_surfer

I need to transfer out an existing M&S Cash ISA from a previous year as soon as possible.
Any suggestions (or shared experience) as to who would be the quickest provider that would be able to open & transfer (preferably all done online) an ISA account for me are welcome.
Thanx in advance,
s_s
p.s. I am registered for online banking (for various financial products) with number of different providers.

10_66

Transfers always seem to take a long time, whoever I choose, but one I would never go near again is Abbey (Santander), they messed up big time a couple of years ago, and it took ages to sort out with many 'phone calls.

Baldur

It's the luck of the draw.

The fastest transfer that I have ever had took two days from one maturing FRISA to another (and it was only that long because the maturity date fell on a weekend), BUT I had set it up at least a month in advance.

Like 10_66, I have also had problems when attempting to transfer to Abbey in the past couple of years - so much so that I gave up in the end and transferred elsewhere.

apt

You mention online, but in my experience Kent Reliance, who operate by post, have been the quickest and most efficient. I've found Newcastle BS efficient when opening online, but have not moved an ISA away from them yet. Relatively poor from my personal experience - Skipton, NatWest and (surprise, surprise) Abbey.

steveksullivan

a simlar request so people reading this might be able to help me too ....

Anybody got any experience of transferring ISA's away from First Direct.... i.e. how promptly they act on a request?

MarkyMarkD

It depends on a lot of things - particularly the volume of transactions that the provider has got going in or out, but also their policy on speed of processing. As the HMRC rules allow 30 days to process transfers, you are subject to their whim to some extent and if they need your money, they may process slowly.

Often, though, it's the organisation you are transferring TO that faff about - if they are a best buy, they are often swamped with business and take an age to request the funds. And there is no HMRC guidance for how long this type of the process should take.

sofa_surfer

Well done!
Sent the application+transfer form on Saturday 20th; their letter from 22nd of Feb informing me they've already written to the current provider has arrived today.
Fingers crossed transfer keeps up this pace .
Thanks again to all the contributors.

KingL

You do realise that you can transfer any time and that it has nothing to do with the tax year, don't you? Just wondrin' why the urgency...