Cash ISAs: The Best Currently Available List

jimjames

akh43 wrote: »

I thought keeping it as an ISA going forward would be the best option as this is old ISA month that I just keep transferring. Just saving this and other ISAs towards my retirement pot, hoping to merge several ISAs together to get a better interest rate and in the hope some day the rates overall will improve.

If you are putting in substantially less than £15k per year and don't have much more than that then the best option would appear to be to maximise your income at the moment which isn't inside an ISA.

As the limit has increased you can easily get £10k back inside an ISA should you so wish.

Alternatively if you are prepared to risk some of the money you can get 4% on a S&S ISA as well.

akh43

Consumerist wrote: »

The PO ISA is variable-rate so you can transfer out whenever you like without penalty.

Bear in mind that the Post Office uses Bank of Ireland which is not, I think, covered by the UK's compensation scheme.

Picking up on jimjames' point, if you intend to subscribe significantly less than the £50K+ annual allowance next year then you could try for higher interest in current accounts providing you don't mind setting them up with monthly DDs and minimum deposits. In my view, it's unlikely that ISA rates are going to improve much in the short term.

I hadnt realised the PO account was not in the UK Compensation Scheme, not looked that far yet, so thanks for pointing that out. If I do go down that route I dont expect it to be in there long so hopefully not an issue.

I dont understand what the last paragraph refers to and the 50K+ allowance

I have checked the link below and the accounts giving 5% are only on £2,000, so not sure its worth the hassle of opening new accounts for and I only have 5 DD spread between 2 accounts. I have very little outgoings and its not really an option to add more DD needed to open another CA.

Hopefully taking early retirement in the next 3/4 years so also starting to put money into AVC's to boost my pension using salary sacrifice so not as much money to save as I have had in the past, approx £10k for the coming year which I saved before AVC commitment.

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/savings-accounts-best-interest#currentaccount

Thanks for the link, but the 5% is only on £2,000 so not really relevant on the amount I am looking at, unless I am missing something.

YorkshireBoy

akh43 wrote: »

Thanks for the link, but the 5% is only on £2,000 so not really relevant on the amount I am looking at, unless I am missing something.

I think you might be!

If you're quick you may get 2 x TSB Plus. There's also Nationwide (but only for a year). That's 6.5K of your cash making 5% AER and not a DD in sight!

Add in a Club Lloyds account and the rest of your cash could be making 4% AER...so that's an average 4.5% AER for the next 12 months. The Club Lloyds account requires 2 DDs to pay out each month, but there are easy options available to take care of these.

You can set up SOs to take care of the monthly funding.

But it all boils down to whether you can be 'bothered' or not. If you can't...well they may be around for longer for the rest of us who can. So thanks for that.

Of course if there are two of you, you could get around £13.5K (and possibly even £19.5K) making 5% AER!

MARTYM8`

akh43 wrote: »

I hadnt realised the PO account was not in the UK Compensation Scheme, not looked that far yet, so thanks for pointing that out. If I do go down that route I dont expect it to be in there long so hopefully not an issue.

Post office savings are protected - Bank of Ireland UK plc is the partner who manages the savings for them and it is covered by the Financial Services Compensation scheme as it has by definition a UK banking licence. Its parent company is obviously BoI in Ireland but that doesn't matter.

I have an isa with Yorkshire bank - which is a subsidiary of an Australian bank - but with a UK banking licence. Same difference - and still covered under the FSCS!

http://www.postoffice.co.uk/savings-accounts/your-savings-are-protected

So no need to worry!

Archi_Bald

akh43 wrote: »

I hadnt realised the PO account was not in the UK Compensation Scheme

don't worry, all UK Post Office account are covered by the FSCS.

akh43 wrote: »

I dont understand what the last paragraph refers to and the 50K+ allowance

That's wrong, ISA allowance is £15K, going to £15240.

The £50K+ is what you can get into interest-paying current accounts. You should not feel put off by the DD requirements since these are dead easy to meet. There are threads on all those accounts on the Forum.

akh43

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions, I can see I need to look more indepth into all this before I decide what to do. Only me so the joint accounts are not an option.

Consumerist

Archi_Bald wrote: »

. . . That's wrong, ISA allowance is £15K, going to £15240.

I keep doing that and I don't know why. I suppose 50k and 15k sound the same in my head.

Thanks for the correction

Space_Captain

Very disappointed in the ISA market over the last year.

Does anyone know if I can open a second Santander 123 bank account to get slightly better interest on up to 20K ?
Will it also need monthly funding and direct debits etc ?

Archi_Bald

Space_Captain wrote: »

Does anyone know if I can open a second Santander 123 bank account to get slightly better interest on up to 20K ?
Will it also need monthly funding and direct debits etc ?

For the latest on number of 123 accounts and their pre-reqs: http://www.santander.co.uk/uk/web/santanderuk/current-accounts/123-current-account

eskbanker

Archi_Bald wrote: »

Space_Captain wrote: »

Very disappointed in the ISA market over the last year.

Does anyone know if I can open a second Santander 123 bank account to get slightly better interest on up to 20K ?
Will it also need monthly funding and direct debits etc ?

For the latest on number of 123 accounts and their pre-reqs: http://www.santander.co.uk/uk/web/santanderuk/current-accounts/123-current-account

See also post #3858 a bit further back up this thread!