Cash Isa Help

Notfarfromtheborder

Hi

Both my wife and I have 1year cash isa's maturing on 1-4-24, circa £50K in each. I would like to transfer this straight away to another provider who offers a good interest rate. Current providers follow on rate is poor

Needs to be easy access, allows transfers in and be flexible.

I've found one but I need to open with at least £1, this I believe I can not do until 6-4-24 due to already using £20K each this tax year.

Does anyone know of an account that can be opened now with no opening balance this tax year allowing for speedy transfer from current provider or do we just have to wait for 6th April and take the lost interest on the chin?

Thanks

JGB1955

Are you SURE you can't transfer in existing funds?  

Notfarfromtheborder

JGB1955 said:

Are you SURE you can't transfer in existing funds?  

It is the initial funding I'm concerned about, i can not open with cash until 6-4-24 due to having used up £20K this tax year. Thanks

eskbanker

If you share the identity of the product you're referring to, you may find that others have relevant experiences of whether transfers satisfy the stated requirement to fund with at least £1 on opening.

Likewise, if you share the name of your existing provider then posters may be able to comment on the speed of transfers, at least some of which is dependent on whether electronic transfers are supported by both parties, although this time of year is likely to be busier than most for ISA providers....

Notfarfromtheborder said:

Does anyone know of an account that can be opened now with no opening balance this tax year allowing for speedy transfer from current provider or do we just have to wait for 6th April and take the lost interest on the chin?

Actually, on reflection, given that there are only six working days left in this tax year (and only two until maturity of your existing accounts), it seems pretty inevitable that you're going to have a period of suboptimal interest.

Notfarfromtheborder

Thanks, just trying to minimize that period of suboptimal interest, especially as invested money is borrowed at 2.89%

xylophone

Can you not just open and tick the transfer in on maturity box?

elkiedee

You only have 1 working day before the Easter weekend and 4 days after. So long as you're transferring the whole of this year's ISA money,  you can apply to transfer on Tuesday 2 April (you don't need to wait until 6 April or even Monday 8 April which is the first working day in the new financial year). If it doesn't complete this financial year (4 working it's transfer money and it won't affect your 24/25 ISA allowance anyway.

As an example, I applied for a new ISA (Coventry) with my first (partial) ISA transfer (pre 2023 money in an old HSBC account, not very high interest rate) on Thursday 29 February - I can't put new money into it until the new financial year as I've made a few small additions to a different ISA in the last few months. My transfer took place on Monday 4 February, so within 2 working days. I've just applied for a further partial transfer from the same account and will see what happens/how long it takes, but I'm not losing a lot of interest as it's a relatively small amount of my savings.

Notfarfromtheborder

xylophone said:

Can you not just open and tick the transfer in on maturity box?

Thanks, I had not got that far in the application process, this is probably the advice needed.

Notfarfromtheborder

elkiedee said:

You only have 1 working day before the Easter weekend and 4 days after. So long as you're transferring the whole of this year's ISA money,  you can apply to transfer on Tuesday 2 April (you don't need to wait until 6 April or even Monday 8 April which is the first working day in the new financial year). If it doesn't complete this financial year (4 working it's transfer money and it won't affect your 24/25 ISA allowance anyway.

As an example, I applied for a new ISA (Coventry) with my first (partial) ISA transfer (pre 2023 money in an old HSBC account, not very high interest rate) on Thursday 29 February - I can't put new money into it until the new financial year as I've made a few small additions to a different ISA in the last few months. My transfer took place on Monday 4 February, so within 2 working days. I've just applied for a further partial transfer from the same account and will see what happens/how long it takes, but I'm not losing a lot of interest as it's a relatively small amount of my savings.

Thanks, makes sense now. I was presuming I needed to start the process this year by depositing cash into the new ISA before I could initiate the transfer