Cash ISAs: The Best Currently Available List

flaneurs_lobster

s71hj said:

flaneurs_lobster said:

s71hj said:

Meteor Bank have a 6 month fixed rate ISA at 4.35%. It may be it has been mentioned, but first I've seen of it. Flexible and transfers in are allowed.
https://savings.meteoram.com/savings/fixed-term/10222/isbank-6-month-fixed-term-deposit-419-aer-boosted-by-meteor-to-435-aer

Always nervous of clauses that state "...but our understanding is that HMRC....."

The boost explained

This savings account will earn 4.19% AER for the duration of the term. With the Meteor Boost of 0.15%, the effective rate will be 4.35% AER. At maturity, the return of 4.19% AER will be credited to your Cash ISA. At the same time Meteor will pay the additional amount as a cash bonus into your General account as a separate payment. This cannot be paid into your Cash ISA at maturity, as it would be considered a new subscription and therefore would be part of your ISA allowance for the year, but our understanding is that HMRC do not currently consider such cash bonus payments to be taxable.

So presumably if they are wrong about HMRC the liability would be tax on 0.15 % at whatever rate my savings interest was subject to? 

Probably, assume the IsBank product stands on its own if the Meteor wrapper is found to be iffy.

clairec666

flaneurs_lobster said:

s71hj said:

Meteor Bank have a 6 month fixed rate ISA at 4.35%. It may be it has been mentioned, but first I've seen of it. Flexible and transfers in are allowed.
https://savings.meteoram.com/savings/fixed-term/10222/isbank-6-month-fixed-term-deposit-419-aer-boosted-by-meteor-to-435-aer

Always nervous of clauses that state "...but our understanding is that HMRC....."

The boost explained

This savings account will earn 4.19% AER for the duration of the term. With the Meteor Boost of 0.15%, the effective rate will be 4.35% AER. At maturity, the return of 4.19% AER will be credited to your Cash ISA. At the same time Meteor will pay the additional amount as a cash bonus into your General account as a separate payment. This cannot be paid into your Cash ISA at maturity, as it would be considered a new subscription and therefore would be part of your ISA allowance for the year, but our understanding is that HMRC do not currently consider such cash bonus payments to be taxable.

All sounds a bit vague to me. "We think it won't be taxable, but don't quote us on it."

It's just personal preference, but I like my banks to know what they're talking about when it comes to tax.

BlueSquirrel3

So presumably if they are wrong about HMRC the liability would be tax on 0.15 % at whatever rate my savings interest was subject to? 

The additional bonus rate is likely to just be an incentive to attract you to try out the Meteor platform. I put money into their IsBank 1 year ISA a few weeks ago (without a bonus) when the rate was market leading and the platform is really easy to use. You do need to self identify using face recognition, but that was straight forward too and you only have to do it once. IsBank are a legit bank with the £120k FSCS protection, so you're money is protected with them up to that amount. I think all Meteors banks are FSCS protected. 
The actual bank rate on the ISA is tax free, so if Meteor are wrong about the additional bonus rate being tax free then it's just the 0.15% amount you'll be liable for tax on. It sounds like they pay that outside of the tax wrapper account anyway.

SnowMan

Coventry Building Society 5 access ISA 1 year, no longer available, reducing from 4.15% AER to 4% AER on 20th January 2026

https://www.coventrybuildingsociety.co.uk/content/dam/cbs/member/pdfs/savings/rate-change-notice.pdf

flobbalobbalob

I opened my Monument cash ISA last march at 4.76% when the BOE base rate was 4.50%. It dropped to 4.25% to match the next BOE rate of 4.25% , twice the BOE reduction.

It is now 3.75% and I need to transfer. I don't want to fall for a teaser rate again. Ideally I would like a provider who is consistently fair and maintains 0.25% above the base rate.

I've been looking through historical rates of providers but it is proving difficult to analyse.

Are there any providers out there that are historically fair ?

Thank you for your knowledge.

CuparLad

It's important to remember why financial institutions offer accounts at varying rates over different periods of time. They will have cash requirements to manage their business that vary over time, and they use interest rates to attract cash to meet those requirements. They will also use low rates to push money away, if they have a surplus. Your savings are a loan; they are borrowing your money and they want to do that at the most advantageous rate possible TO THEM, not you.

Sometimes they will use a headline-grabbing rate to get the cash in, but don't particularly want to pay that rate for a long time, so they later cut the rate, knowing that many people will be slow to move their money elsewhere, or will just "stick". Think of it like the "SALE - up to 70% Off" posters in a shop window; it's only until you get closer do you see the * and the conditions that limit the scope of the advertised discount.

You are more likely to get stable and more predictable rates from the big "high street" names that are well funded and have stable businesses. For the exact same reasons, those rates will rarely be headline grabbing. It's the smaller institutions and FinTechs that offer the higher rates, but are very variable because they are less attractive and hence have to offer higher rates to pull money in and then drop them to make the business sustainable in the long term.

If you want higher rates, you have to accept that you must actively manage your money and move it around to get the best rates. If you want to leave your money alone, you must generally accept lower but more stable rates.

flobbalobbalob

CuparLad said:

. If you want to leave your money alone, you must generally accept lower but more stable rates.

Thanks, so I guess I should be asking if 0.25% above base rate is considered low enough to be stable with any providers.

pecunianonolet

flobbalobbalob said:

I opened my Monument cash ISA last march at 4.76% when the BOE base rate was 4.50%. It dropped to 4.25% to match the next BOE rate of 4.25% , twice the BOE reduction.

It is now 3.75% and I need to transfer. I don't want to fall for a teaser rate again. Ideally I would like a provider who is consistently fair and maintains 0.25% above the base rate.

I've been looking through historical rates of providers but it is proving difficult to analyse.

Are there any providers out there that are historically fair ?

Thank you for your knowledge.

I moved all to Cynergy when they had the 4.35% ISA on offer and they sadly reduced to 4.05%, which is still a good rate but decided to give Aldermore and their 4.15% account a go and initiated a transfer and now waiting for the funds to move over. Only a 0.1% difference but on higher amounts it does make a difference. I am leaving £1 behind to keep the Cynergy account open just in case. 

I do have also an old Easy Access Cash ISA Exclusive Issue 2available that has a rather generous 2 month notice period window, is fully flexible and offers unlimited withdrawals and partial transfers and out available that sits still at 4.11% and I am currently using it since my Chip ISA has dropped to 4.06%. It's mainly a parking lot for salary and reg saver funds and my backup plan should Aldermore lower their rates earlier as I hope they will do. I also have the Coventry 4 access ISA with £1 in it that lowered from 4.15% to 4% recently as another backup option.  

flaneurs_lobster

CuparLad said:

If you want higher rates, you have to accept that you must actively manage your money and move it around to get the best rates. If you want to leave your money alone, you must generally accept lower but more stable rates.

Much sense in your response.

After 18 months of swapping my ISA funds around a bunch of FinTechs to get the latest 1% "boost", "bonus", "special" rate, only to be moving it again a month later, I've had enough. 

If the ISA transfer system were a simple matter of clicking "Go" (like a non-ISA account) I might reconsider but the extra work and hassle in the transfer process, plus the dreaded wait for the process to complete successfully (or not) mean I'm out. ISA funds are now mostly with bricks'n'mortar banks.

Interest rates are such that for a basic rate tax payer the returns to be had in other vehicles are now greater than that available in Cash ISAs - I'm currently emptying Cash ISAs to fund RSs paying 6-8%. 

CuparLad

Everyone's circumstances will be different, but ISAs generally only make sense if you're likely to exceed your individual personal allowances. Rates available on non-ISA accounts are often higher and offer much greater flexibility. 

It is true that the ISA transfer process is still very cumbersome, but is driven by the need to track the subscriptions. If there was a centralised management system run by HMRC that ISA Managers could feed into in real time, ISA transfers could work much like Faster Payments, but..well..government IT systems......