End of Fixed Term Cash ISA - What Happens Then?

cheesemason

I have a 1 year Cash ISA with Ford Money that I opened in 22-23. At the end of that term, what happens? I put the full £20k in and may want it to just be in a easy access ISA at the end. Can it be converted to an easy access ISA?

I'm looking at opening another cash ISA this year for new money and want to make sure that I dont get 'stuck' with having to put the £20k from last year into non-ISA savings if I have already used a new ISA for this year

Hope that makes sense!

Thanks

refluxer

cheesemason said:

I have a 1 year Cash ISA with Ford Money that I opened in 22-23. At the end of that term, what happens? I put the full £20k in and may want it to just be in a easy access ISA at the end. Can it be converted to an easy access ISA?

Yes - you can transfer the balance of your Ford Money Fixed Cash ISA to another cash ISA (of any type) when the current one matures, either with Ford Money or another provider.

The maturity process is explained in the 'Can I withdraw money ?' section in the product summary box. Note that if they don't hear from you, they will automatically open up another fixed rate cash ISA of the same duration as the existing one and transfer the balance into that so make sure that you submit your maturity instructions if you don't want this to happen.

• As your Fixed Cash ISA approaches maturity we’ll send you a letter around a month before it matures and a follow up email 14 days before the end of the term. Each communication will explain that you need to log in to see the maturity options that are available to you. You will have until 48 hours before your Fixed Cash ISA matures to select your preferred option(s). If we don’t hear from you by then and we’re offering you another term of the same or similar length, the new term will start automatically on the maturity date of the previous account.

If you're thinking about transferring to a different bank for the new easy access ISA then I'm not sure how the timings would work with Ford's restriction, but one safe bet would be to tell Ford that you'd like the fixed rate ISA to transfer to one of their own easy access ISAs upon maturity (which should be a quick and seamless process) and you'd then be free to transfer to another provider at any time. This would eliminate the risk of it being automatically transferred into another fixed rate account.

cheesemason said:

I'm looking at opening another cash ISA this year for new money and want to make sure that I dont get 'stuck' with having to put the £20k from last year into non-ISA savings if I have already used a new ISA for this year

If you haven't paid any of your ISA allowance from the current tax year into a cash ISA yet, then you can open one with any bank and put up to £20k in it and this won't stop you from opening a different ISA for your other transfer later in the year.

The important thing to remember is that you're not limited to opening one cash ISA per tax year but you are limited to only being allowed to pay money from the current tax year into one cash ISA at any one time.

Albermarle

Ford Money will contact you a few weeks before it matures. You will be given options, such as
Roll it over into a new ISA with them.
Withdraw the money to your bank account ( and lose the ISA status).
Transfer it to another ISA provider. In this case you need to organise this via the new ISA provider.

Some points to watch out for.
If you do nothing Ford Money will roll it over into a new one year fix ISA.
They may not be currently offering every ISA option ( for example may have a 2 year fix and not a 3 year fix) they may even not have a easy access ISA available. You can easily check on their website.
If you want to organise a transfer then you are best to start the process in good time, before the current fix ends.

cheesemason

Thanks both