Cash ISA

Robisere

Hello all
I have a little over £2,600 invested for each of my 4 grandchildren. (It began life as £3,000 each, but the banking crisis sliced lumps off it) The eldest grandson is 18 in a few days, which is maturity time, and will leave school in September. He is studying Computer Networking and Security, but has plans to take a year out and obtain practical experience before applying to Birmingham Uni for a CISCO course. I am in no doubt that he will make that, I am of course biased but his tutors at College have informed me that he is quite brilliant. He has Asperger's Syndrome, which gives him "tunnel Vision" in carrying through anything he does.

I would be grateful for advice about investing the money for him in the meantime. He has a HSBC account, and would like a cash e-ISA with the same bank in order to manage it online. However, I have looked at the rates and they are abysmal. Can anyone recommend an alternative? The fact that he is intending to work for 2012/13, means that he will be a taxpayer from then on, so an ISA is the preferred choice.

All advice welcome, thank you in advance.

jamesd

Aspergers is pretty common in IT so he should fit in well. Don't expect too much from the course, they are typically regarded as bare minimum and knowing how to use the things in the course to solve real-world problems will be of considerably more use in an interview practical test than knowing only how to use the Cisco equipment. He'll need to know TCP/IP and related network protocols backwards and inside-out to do well in such checks. Not saying it's a bad idea to do the course, but that he should ensure that he does lots of practical work.

I'd normally suggest the First Direct 8% regular saver account but there's a £25,000 minimum income for the required current account there and I doubt that his income will be sufficient.

atush

You could look at any e ISA that has faster payments as that will be as good as transferring the money internally at HSBC.

Robisere

jamesd wrote: »

Aspergers is pretty common in IT so he should fit in well. Don't expect too much from the course, they are typically regarded as bare minimum and knowing how to use the things in the course to solve real-world problems will be of considerably more use in an interview practical test than knowing only how to use the Cisco equipment. He'll need to know TCP/IP and related network protocols backwards and inside-out to do well in such checks. Not saying it's a bad idea to do the course, but that he should ensure that he does lots of practical work.

I'd normally suggest the First Direct 8% regular saver account but there's a £25,000 minimum income for the required current account there and I doubt that his income will be sufficient.

Many thanks, James D.

I have found the best option for him right here on MSE: the AA 3.05% ISA. We can apply online and link his HSBC account to it. I had driven myself barmy looking at different sources, but the AA one looks good and the support is clear, UK driven by phone or internet.

You are right about Aspergers being common in IT. I took him to Brum Uni in the Summer to look at options. The CISCO tutor smiled when I told him about the problem, "But that's common to all of us," he said.

Grandson is heavily into practical work already, having set up his own network about 18 months ago. I build them, he programs and sets them up. For Christmas and his birthday on Sunday, we bought the bits to build a server, which we built between us. He uses a whiteboard to image his networks and also sets up Virtual Networks, which is where my knowledge stops dead. Mensa have measured his IQ at 124, whatever that means. I built his first PC when he was 10, created a monster I think.

jamesd

124 IQ would have been enough to qualify for university back when it was available to only the people scoring in the top 15-20% on exams, if his exams did as well as his IQ. High enough so he's going to grasp things much faster than most of the population but at university he'll still find that many people are reasonably similar in understanding speed to him or faster, compared to the general population. A chance for him to have some fun with people who aren't a lot slower than him.