Cash ISAs: The Best Currently Available List

Kazza242

The first post of this thread has been updated.

There have been a lot of rate changes that have taken effect from today (02/01/2009), as the remaining ISA providers respond to the latest BOE base rate cut.

Some ISAs have been removed from the list, most notably from Natwest and RBS, as they are currently no longer competitive. ISAs from Manchester BS, Standard Life and Leek United BS have been added to the first post.

Decombobulator - Yes, I noticed this too. The way Newcastle have described the ISA is rather confusing as they list a "maturity date" which is often associated with fixed rate ISAs and not variable ones. I've moved it up to the variable ISA section, as it does state that the Withdrawal arrangements for this ISA are "Penalty free without notice".

nickbo

My friend just spoke to them on the phone, the rate is dropping to 3% as of today including bouns...

Kazza242

nickbo wrote: »

My friend just spoke to them on the phone, the rate is dropping to 3% as of today including bouns...

Hi nickbo. Yes, they dropped the rate about an hour after I updated the rates on the thread. I've removed the Newcastle ISA from the list as it's no longer competitive at just 3% when compared to the other rates on offer.

Special_Saver2

Kazza242 wrote: »

• Scarborough BS My Savings ISA - 4.40%
  Rate guarantee? Yes, but not at the current rate. Guarantees to be no more than 1% below the BOE Base Rate.
  Minimum operating deposit: £10. Min - Max monthly deposit: £10 - £300.
  Further additions permitted? Yes, unlimited additional payments permitted provided £250 pm not exceeded.
  Operated via: Branch and Post.
  Number of Monthly Payments Required (per annum): 10.
  Number of withdrawals permitted (per annum): 1.
  Penalty for missing the required number of payments: 3.00% loss.
  Penalty for exceeding the maximum number of withdrawals: 3.00% loss.

This only pays 3.5% now (or 0.5% if you don't meet all of the conditions above). The rate on this account and on the non-ISA version (identical interest rate) keeps becoming more and more uncompetitive. You can easily do better than 3.5% with some of the other accounts listed in the first post and not have to put up with all these special conditions. Kazza, do you think it is time to remove this account from the list too?

SS2

Special_Saver2

I am not sure if you want to add these to the list, but I shall mention:

Nationwide BS 3 year fixed rate ISA paying 4.25%
Beware though - you cannot make any partial withdrawals and if you close it down with 2-3 years left then you lose 150 days interest, with 1-2 years left you lose 120 days interest, less than 1 year you lose 90 days interest.

Leeds BS 2 year fixed rate ISA paying 4% on £27,000+
This pays the same as the Nationwide 2 year offering at the moment but the terms and conditions are better for premature withdrawals. With the Nationwide offering you lose interest as described above (i.e. up to 120 days loss of interest) and you have to close the entire account to get early access. With the Leeds BS account, you can get 25% back penalty free early and you can withdraw further amounts above this with a penalty of 90 days loss of interest on the amount withdrawn.

Leeds BS Inflation Buster ISA (Issue 7)
Not as good as the previous versions but pays RPI + 1.8% over a certain fixed period (follow the link above for all the details). If inflation drops to 1-2% (as many people are predicting) then this will not be such a good deal but it is worth mentioning.

SS2

VardreRFC

Cash ISA interest rate amended

5th January 2009


From Monday 5th January 2009 our Cash ISA interest rate has been amended to 4.20% gross AER (4.14% gross).

pennylessstudent

Northern Rock currently have a fixed rate ISA at 4%. The interest rate is guaranteed until 15th December 2009 and they accept transfers of existing ISAs.

Kazza242

The first post of this thread has been updated.

There have been some further rate changes since the last update a few days ago. I haven't had an Internet connection for a couple of days (due to a problem at my local telephone exchange :rolleyes:) but all is up and running now.

Updates have been made to the Ruffler ISA rate, which has been reduced to 4.20%. I suppose this rate isn't bad compared to the other variable rates on offer. Kent Reliance's rates have also been updated.

The Cheshire BS 4.50% 1 Year fixed rate ISA has also been removed from the list.

Further updates will be made at the weekend.

fullstop

Kazza242 wrote: »

The first post of this thread has been updated.

There have been some further rate changes since the last update a few days ago. I haven't had an Internet connection for a couple of days (due to a problem at my local telephone exchange :rolleyes:) but all is up and running now.

Updates have been made to the Ruffler ISA rate, which has been reduced to 4.20%. I suppose this rate isn't bad compared to the other variable rates on offer. Kent Reliance's rates have also been updated.

The Cheshire BS 4.50% 1 Year fixed rate ISA has also been removed from the list.

Further updates will be made at the weekend.

The Cheshire rate is now 3.6% fixed, not too bad I suppose with more rate cuts on the way.

Kazza242

fullstop wrote: »

The Cheshire rate is now 3.6% fixed, not too bad I suppose with more rate cuts on the way.

Yeah, I saw the new rate, but Northern Rock are offering 4.00% fixed, so I was going to add that to the thread during the next update.