Top Cash ISAs Discussion Area

suesie999

Can anyone help? I have a cash ISA with SL which is at 2.65% and I could transfer elsewhere. I can also invest £5340 in this tax year, either in the exisiting SL or in a new account, however is it possible to invest this years allowance in a new account ( e.g. Santander at 3.3%) but as this does not accept transfers from previous years, would I then be allowed to also transfer to SL funds to a better paying account elsehwere but not add to it??

spikyone

suesie999 wrote: »

Can anyone help? I have a cash ISA with SL which is at 2.65% and I could transfer elsewhere. I can also invest £5340 in this tax year, either in the exisiting SL or in a new account, however is it possible to invest this years allowance in a new account ( e.g. Santander at 3.3%) but as this does not accept transfers from previous years, would I then be allowed to also transfer to SL funds to a better paying account elsehwere but not add to it??

The answer to this is very short - yes, you would be allowed to do this.

As long as you only subscribe (i.e. pay new money in) to one ISA per tax year, you can open ISAs at any time solely for transfers. Just make sure that you transfer by asking your new ISA provider to do it for you.

elfie87

Right I've also managed to confuse myself silly! I opened an ISA with Halifax in January (2011) on a rate of 2.8%. I've only put about £450 since January and I don't anticipate paying in the full allowance this coming 2011/12 tax year either. I'll more than likely only be putting around £100 a month in per month, but I figure its better than nothing!

I'd like to open an ISA with Santander on their flexible 3.30% rate for this tax year. I know they don't accept transfers, but can't I just close my Halifax account and put the money into the new Santander one? I know someone else asked this earlier and was told that'd be okay but that the amount they transferred would be deducted from their allowance, but with me paying so little in this won't affect me.

I assume taking the money out of the Halifax won't incur any penalties, as I've just received my interest for the year. So in short, is it okay to close the Halifax one and then put the money into the Santander one?

Thanks in advance and sorry for my denseness!

Lokolo_2

elfie87 wrote: »

Right I've also managed to confuse myself silly! I opened an ISA with Halifax in January (2011) on a rate of 2.8%. I've only put about £450 since January and I don't anticipate paying in the full allowance this coming 2011/12 tax year either. I'll more than likely only be putting around £100 a month in per month, but I figure its better than nothing!

I'd like to open an ISA with Santander on their flexible 3.30% rate for this tax year. I know they don't accept transfers, but can't I just close my Halifax account and put the money into the new Santander one? I know someone else asked this earlier and was told that'd be okay but that the amount they transferred would be deducted from their allowance, but with me paying so little in this won't affect me.

I assume taking the money out of the Halifax won't incur any penalties, as I've just received my interest for the year. So in short, is it okay to close the Halifax one and then put the money into the Santander one?

Thanks in advance and sorry for my denseness!

Yes is the answer :j

Since you don't see yourself as being able to contribute the full allowance then there is no reason not to withdraw and re-deposit into the Santander ISA (well except that their customer service reputation is bad!)

No, you won't incur any penalties, I would go ahead and do as you said :T

elfie87

Lokolo_2 wrote: »

Yes is the answer :j

Since you don't see yourself as being able to contribute the full allowance then there is no reason not to withdraw and re-deposit into the Santander ISA (well except that their customer service reputation is bad!)

No, you won't incur any penalties, I would go ahead and do as you said :T

Great, thank you! I thought that was the case but kept reading warnings about not withdrawing money! Thanks ever so much for getting back to me Lokolo :j

PennyPenny

I don't often post here, but I do read a lot of the threads, but I HAD to share this one with you all.

Birmingham Midshires are offering 3.1% :T on their instant access cash ISA if you hold more than £20k in the account.

I've applied for the Santander 3.3% cash ISA for 2011/12 and I also applied for the Halifax 3.0% ISA so that I could transfer my previous years savings. On calling up BM to get my account details, I was advised of the above. Suffice to say, I'm waiting on the papework to come through so I can move to the better rate, and my poor Halifax application will just have to stay empty :rotfl:

gozaimasu

I'm so jealous of all you ISA people who can fill an ISA at the start of the tax year! I struggle to get anywhere near the limit over the course of a year...

I think I've been a bit stupid with them too. I always seem to hang around till the last minute to wait and see if a) and excellent deal comes out or b) I come into a large enough sum of money to fill one immediately all in one go. Linked to big dreams of winning the lottery, but hey! All that waiting around means I miss out on a full years interest on any money, no matter how small an amount. ObviouslyI would have been better to fill it and transfer to a better deal if they drop the rate.

Currently getting 3% and not sure if moving for 0.3% is worth it or not. Martin is always saying to transfer into the best rate but I'm not sure it's worth the hassel and I don't want to lose the "status" with my bank. I've been with the ISA provider for years and I always thought that the more products you have with them then the more likely they are to accept you for other products? More likely to give you credit cards etc.

On a credit card note (yes I know, slightly off topic in an ISA thread, but it is linked!) do they give you a higher credit limit if you earn more? Or if you have savings (ISA or otherwise) with them? So would someone earning £30k get more credit than someone on £15k? What if someone has a £30k salary on a pro-rata basis, taking them to actually earning £15k? What would or should they put on their application? Do they give more credit to full time people? Would someone earning part time 15k get more credit than someone earning 15k full time?

It's interesting with all these 0% rates at the moment. No point getting a card with 12 months spending if they are only going to give you a tiny amount of credit!

leaphaze

gozaimasu wrote: »

No point getting a card with 12 months spending if they are only going to give you a tiny amount of credit!

Don't bother applying for a CC from Barclays in that case.

leaphaze

gozaimasu wrote: »

Currently getting 3% and not sure if moving for 0.3% is worth it or not. Martin is always saying to transfer into the best rate but I'm not sure it's worth the hassel and I don't want to lose the "status" with my bank. I've been with the ISA provider for years and I always thought that the more products you have with them then the more likely they are to accept you for other products? More likely to give you credit cards etc.

It may only be 0.3% but it's actually increasing your interest by 10%! I'm sure your current provider would love you to stay and will reward you by dropping your interest rate after 12 months! Make sure you're getting the best deal for yourself.

Having a good credit rating is more important than having products with the same institution. If the terms and condition suit, I think you should switch and ditch.

Gambit

leaphaze wrote: »

OK - once you pay cash into an ISA it becomes the ISA for the current tax year, i.e. the current ISA. (You can have ISAs for previous tax years but they don't affect this so let's say no more about them.)

If you discover another provider gives a higher rate of interest and accepts transfers, then you can transfer your current ISA to that provider. The old provider sends your money plus interest to the new provider. The ISA with your new provider becomes the ISA for the current tax year, i.e. the current ISA. The ISA with the old provider lapses.

Therefore, yes, you can open more than one ISA in the current tax year, but you can only pay into the current ISA.

When you open an ISA with a provider, you are not bound to pay money in, but once you do pay money in, the ISA is activated and becomes your current ISA. So you should be able to open an ISA in the last few days of this tax year (even though you have paid into another ISA in this tax year), as long as you don't pay money in until the new tax year. Of course some providers may object to this for some reason, but it is not against the tax rules.

Sorry for the long post but I was trying to cover all angles.

Thanks for that!

Well I think I confused myself. When I got the MSE email last week it talked about last days to open the cash ISAs at Halifax and Santander. I thought it meant that they were withdrawing these high rates but what it obviously meant was that those were the last days to get an ISA before the 2010/11 tax year ends - doh! Silly me!

I got it sorted anyways as opened another cash ISA on 3rd April but only funded it with £1 on 6th April so it's now my current cash ISA