PSA - Personal Savings Accounts

NormanRobinson22

Please forgive me if this has already been asked, though I have not been able to find anything. Is there a thread on the new PSAs along the lines of the wonderful 'sticky' maintained by Kazaa, which I have used as my gospel for Cash ISAs over many years? Appreciated.

bowlhead99

NormanRobinson22 wrote: »

PSA - Personal Savings Accounts
Please forgive me if this has already been asked, though I have not been able to find anything. Is there a thread on the new PSAs along the lines of the wonderful 'sticky' maintained by Kazaa, which I have used as my gospel for Cash ISAs over many years? Appreciated.

There is no such thing as a new 'personal savings account'.

In the context of savings, PSA generally relates to the new Personal Savings Allowance. This is not a special account but simply a general allowance that everyone gets on top of their usual tax annual allowances and tax bands. Well, nearly everyone, but not those earning £150k or more.

If you are a basic rate taxpayer (20%) you can have the first £1000 p,a. of savings interest income free of tax and if you are a higher rate (40%) taxpayer you can get £500 savings income free of tax. Both effectively save £200 of year of tax.

Most of the discussion about this is on the main savings and investment board rather than the ISAs and Tax Free Savings board as this is just a general allowance for your interest income from all sources and not a special personal savings account which a provider is offering.

Maybe you are confusing it with a recently announced new product which will be coming out for those under the age of 40 in April 2017, the 'lifetime ISA'. That is a tax free savings and investment product; but no provider is marketing those products yet as we are at least a year from launch.

NormanRobinson22 wrote: »

Please forgive me if this has already been asked, though I have not been able to find anything.

I'll forgive asking about something that has already been asked but I can't forgive the use of Comic Sans, sorry.

NormanRobinson22

Thank you so much, bowlhead99. Makes it much clearer. I guess I thought banks etc might set up new accounts up to encourage more people to invest in savings but of course what you explained makes perfect sense.
About the Comic Sans, I do apologise. I know many people do not like it, but I just like using a font that's easier on the eye compared to the tedious standards like Arial or Times New Roman. Also it was provided as an option. Many thanks once again!