FD ISA quick qu -please help

s100_2

Hi - please help!!

I opened a FD ISA on the 30th March but only with 500 as that was all i had in my FD account and i didn't want them to stop applications. I have now transferred the remaining 2500 into my FD account, planning to add it in. On the screen it said it would be open within 48hours - which it has been but the ISA is not showing up on internet banking? Would it just show up on the main page? What should I do? I don't think it is open as I now have 3000 in the FD current account. (but the ISA will only open with a lump sum of 500?)

Bargain_Rzl

Hi s100,

I'm in exactly the same position with the FD ISA at the moment. I have an FD current account and applied for the ISA last Saturday, with an opening deposit of £1950 as it was all I had at the time - I'd transferred an additional top-up of £1050 from my main (non-FD) current account on Thursday as soon as I had been paid, but I knew it would not be available to FD until at least Wednesday.

I phoned them up and they said they had a huge backlog of ISA applications due to it being the end of the year and also due to the bank holiday weekend. I explained that I needed to top up the account before the end of the year and they said they understood and that the account would be opened shortly.

Logged in yesterday night and had a message in the "Unread Messages" area which said that the account was open and would show up on Internet Banking within a couple of days. Have you checked to see whether you've had this message yet?

Anyway, I'm assuming that as the top-up cash is in an FD account, it will transfer instantly as soon as I'm able to action it. So I'll give it until Monday, and if the ISA still isn't showing up, I'll phone them and see if they can transfer the cash themselves so as not to miss the Tuesday deadline.

Bargain_Rzl

P.S. You will be able to tell when your account is at the "set up but not yet appearing" stage even before you read your message, because your £500 will have disappeared from your current account.

Bargain_Rzl

s100 - you'll be pleased to hear that my ISA is now active, a day and a half after they sent me the "nearly ready" message. I transferred the rest of my cash in and it showed up immediately.

nearlyrich

I've just had a similar experience, I sent off my application online on Sunday and asked them to take £100 from my esavings account to start it off, I also requested £2900 from my ING savings account to top it up.

Yesterday the money from ING landed in my current account so I called them to set up a verbal instruction to move it into my ISA ASAP. I was away on business overnight and I have just checked my internet banking, the account is showing with the 2 separate transfers in and I had a message saying it was opened.

The lady I spoke to also said thay had been inundated with applications but had almost caught up.

ED

nearlyrich - will First Direct be paying nil interest for March re your e-savings account? Or were you lucky enough that the £100 didn't debit until 1st April?

s100_2

Thanks for your help everyone. I have just logged on and received the message this morning stating that it had been opened and that i should have access to the ISA within 2 days. I'm going to give it till monday and if I still don't have access then I'm going to phone them to arrange a verbal instruction.

Thanks again
(i'm not going to leave it this late next year!)

nearlyrich

ED wrote:

nearlyrich - will First Direct be paying nil interest for March re your e-savings account? Or were you lucky enough that the £100 didn't debit until 1st April?

Yes it debited on 1st April, I only had £150 in that used to be in another account paying about 0.5% interest so it's no big deal.

ED

Well done, nearlyrich!