Virgin Cash ISA V The Rest

MissHap

Best deal on the market if you bought a cash ISA today is the 5.25% with Virgin.
Am I right in assuming you would only get 10 months interest, £875 on a £20k investment as the ISA matures on 31/01/25.
A better bet today would be the 5.03% offered by Shawbrook which I assume runs the full 12 months paying £1007 on a £20k investment.

Descrabled

Ah but there's 11 months from begining of March to end of January 2025.

And of course you will earn interest for the month of February next year for the £20960 you will receive from Virgin.

A better question would be to consider if a 2 year ISA fixed at say 4.69% today might possibly give a better return over fixing for 11 months with Virgin or only 1 year at Shawbrook. What will the interest rate be this time next year?

MissHap

Crystal ball time eh but I suspect less than it is today.
I get it though, a 2 year fix at that rate gives you a guaranteed gain of not far short of a £2k. 

Rich2808

Good rates - but lets just say there may be some challenges in dealing with their systems and administration!

MissHap

Your not the first to mention there negative opinion of Virgin Rich.
I'm now thinking of opening a 5 year cash ISA with UBL at 4.16%.
Anyone got any thoughts on this company??

refluxer

MissHap said:

Your not the first to mention there negative opinion of Virgin Rich.
I'm now thinking of opening a 5 year cash ISA with UBL at 4.16%.
Anyone got any thoughts on this company??

UBL are one of a handful of providers who's default option on maturity is to automatically roll your fixed rate ISA into another one with a similar duration if you don't submit any maturity instructions. This wouldn't be a problem if they offered an easy access ISA as an option but they don't, meaning that you have to be on the ball at maturity and get your timings right if you want to transfer away. This would usually be done by opening another fixed rate account and requesting the transfer in advance, but there has been a thread on here about this causing problems (specifically with UBL) recently.

This isn't necessarily a reason not to choose UBL but it's definitely something to be aware of.

MissHap

Ok, you diary a mature date but its down to you to remember, do they not give you notice that your ISA is about to mature and instruct you of the alternatives?

refluxer

MissHap said:

Ok, you diary a mature date but its down to you to remember, do they not give you notice that your ISA is about to mature and instruct you of the alternatives?

I don't have any personal experience of having an ISA with UBL, but ISA providers will normally contact you 2-4 weeks before a fixed rate ISA matures so I would expect UBL to do the same. Saying that, it always makes sense to make a note of the date yourself so that you're prepared.

My comment above about getting the timings right was in reference to transferring away because, with other ISA providers, you can normally allow a fixed rate ISA to mature into some kind of easy access ISA and then transfer away at your leisure, however this isn't possible with UBL. TBH, I don't know what maturity options they could offer that would be suitable to choose if you didn't want to stay with them.

MissHap

So the only option is to cash it in..............................not really an option if you want to keep it invested is it.

refluxer

MissHap said:

So the only option is to cash it in..............................not really an option if you want to keep it invested is it.

No, your options will be to transfer it a new fixed rate with UBL or transfer it to another ISA provider,

I don't have any personal experience of doing the latter with a provider who doesn't have an easy access option at maturity, but I would imagine you have to open the new ISA a good few weeks before the UBL maturity date and request the transfer in advance, being careful to tick the option on the transfer form that requests the transfer takes place after the fixed rate period is up (or on that specific date). For this to be successful, UBL would need to receive the transfer request before the maturity date and be ready to process it accordingly on the day of maturity in order that it doesn't get reinvested in another fixed rate with UBL.   

Descrabled

The OP might like to know that the new Virgin ISA exclusive with 5.25% interest has a maturity date of 31 March 2025. So nearly 13 months at this fixed rate.