Cash ISAs: The Best Currently Available List

roddydogs

Lloyd/TSB have offered me a fixed rate of £3.75% for 1 year (over 30 g)
(remember all the posts last year/)

10_66

Kazza, apologies if this has already been mentioned, but I rang Nationwide today re their Fixed Rate ISAs and they said that they aren't accepting transfers into their ISAs (fixed or otherwise), and haven't been for some time, due to backlog problems. This seems to be an ongoing problem with them, as they had long delays around March last year too.

This is from their website:
Transfer your ISA to Nationwide
We are temporarily unable to accept transfers in to Nationwide cash ISAs (including Fixed Rate ISA Bonds) from existing cash ISAs held with another ISA provider.
We have made the decision to stop accepting these transfers due to the unprecedented volumes that we have recently received which is preventing us from meeting the high levels of customer service that we aim to deliver.
You are still able to open any of our cash ISAs with new funds from this year's ISA allowance and/or by transferring funds from existing Nationwide or former Portman savings accounts.
We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause and would like to reassure you that we hope to reinstate the Transfer facility as soon as possible.

Lokolo

^^ as above. I almost was going to go and open one today as well!

DemiDee

I know I'm probably sounding completely thick (and I am when it comes to money matters!) but isn't the time to open an ISA at the beginning of the tax year? If so, why are so many people considering opening or moving their ISA? Can you move your ISA money regularly according to which provider is offering the best deal? And is it really worth it unless you're very rich?

purplestar133

DemiDee wrote: »

I know I'm probably sounding completely thick (and I am when it comes to money matters!) but isn't the time to open an ISA at the beginning of the tax year? If so, why are so many people considering opening or moving their ISA? Can you move your ISA money regularly according to which provider is offering the best deal? And is it really worth it unless you're very rich?

You can open an ISA at any time of the year. Providers often offer big rates at the end/beginning of the tax year to tempt people in though. There have been a lot of interest base rate changes that are uprooting people from their accounts at the moment as providers rates are changing all over the place. People are considering whether it's worth staying or moving.

Yes, you can move your ISA as much as you want throughout the year, to providers that accept transfers in. Whether it's worth it or not depends on how much you've got in and how much you value a few percent or point percent. As far as I'm concerned, every penny counts!

10_66

DemiDee wrote: »

Can you move your ISA money regularly according to which provider is offering the best deal? And is it really worth it unless you're very rich?

I have a fixed rate ISA, funds of which have accumulated from previous years', which matures at the end of January. Once the fixed rate finishes, the organisation it's with is no longer the best rate out there, so am looking to move it elsewhere.

Kazza242

The_Enforcer wrote: »

In my view what could accompany the deals new to the list is the date when the rate was last changed (available on the details tabs on products listed at www.moneyfacts.co.uk), as is already displayed next to products that have altered their rates since appearing on the list. This would help the reader to judge which ISAs have factored in recent Bank of England rate changes from those that haven't.

I was planning to do this next weekend when I do my 'major' updates. The three quick updates I did recently were mainly to amend the rates following the latest number of rate reductions.

10_66 - thanks for the info - will add it to the first post now.

KingL - thanks for this. They've extended the bonus since the last update. I'm going to add it to the first post.

Paul_Herring

purplestar133 wrote: »

Whether it's worth it or not depends on how much you've got in and how much you value a few percent or point percent. As far as I'm concerned, every penny counts!

One thing you perhaps should consider is, "is it worth the time spent?"

For example, is it worth 8 hours of your time setting up a new account for (say) £10 extra over a year?

It was that sort of thinking that got me rethinking the stoozing idea (when they started with the BT fees,) and quitting it. It wasn't worth less than £2 an hour to do that sort of thing when I was previously getting £10+(a lot) an hour.

As a result, I rarely (used to) chase anything less than 1% difference on savings. I'm not currently chasing any rates...

Currently I'm reorganising my finances so that I'm actually using *my* money, rather than borrowing someone else's (long story that I'm not going into. No 3rd parties lost out, nor will they, before anyone asks - I'm taking the brunt of any fallout.) IceSave figures promently in this. Along with a cash ISA that's going to be converted to an equity ISA. Assuming, of course, the FSCS get their thumbs out of various orifices and start sending cheques.

alduncan

KingL wrote: »

The bonus is 1.5% until 15 Feb 2010, according to their website

Yes, that's what the Alliance & Leicester website says, and I signed up for an ISA account with them. However, the letter I got back said that the 1.5% bonus is till 7th Dec 2009 - has anyone else had this?

The_Enforcer

The_Enforcer wrote: »

The one anomaly is Standard Life, whose ISA came out on 10th December 2008, when they would have been aware of the 1% cut. My current thoughts are that it's more likely that this deal already takes account of that cut and so the next cut will be in line with the others, leaving it at the top of the list of up-to-date ISAs by the time we get to early Feb.

I have been able to discover that their previous instant access ISA rate of 4.6%AER ran from 22nd October 2008 to 9th December 2008:

http://www.standardlife.co.uk/content/savings/rates/previous_savings_rates.html#Previous%20savings%20rates3

This implies that the previous Personal ISA Direct Access Savings Account at 4.6%AER was changed into the Direct Access Cash ISA at 3.85%AER, with the 0.75% rate cut in response to the December BoE 1% rate cut. This increases my hopes that unlike the Birmingham Midshires and Manchester BS 4%AER deals, it is less likely that a 'double' rate-cut would be applied in the near future.