Cash ISA mixed msgs

nisob

Hi all,
I have known and read that from April this year one can have more than 1 cash isas with different providers. I had opened my 1st cash isa last year with bank 'A' that matured this tax year and I renewed it and topped it up with saving funds. I wanted to open another cash ISA with the same bank to add more savings but their policy does not allow. Thats OK, but what surprised me is that the way they said it, it meant that once u have openend a cash ISA with us you cannot open cash isa with any other provider. I told them that another bank is saying that I can open Cash ISA with them and add my remaining allowance then they corrected themselves, saying it all depends on policies etc.

I was surprised & somehow the conversation made me more confused on what's right or wrong. Has anyone had experience of saving their Cash isa allowance under two different providers? Still quite new to ISAs and somewhat nervous.

Thank you

lisyloo

They are wrong about other providers.
Perhaps they are out of date as it changed from April 2024. It sound like they corrected themselves.
Banks of course can decide on their own policies and offerings.

eskbanker

It's been discussed extensively in other threads already, in which the consensus is that it's unenforceable (and potentially even unlawful in terms of being anti-competitive) for any ISA provider to try to prevent you from paying into another ISA with a different institution.

Sarahspangles

Some of the information on websites and on the scripts in call centres is out of date.

HMRC now allow us to open more than one product within a tax year subject to contributing no more than £20k of ‘new’ money. I’ve opened two with different providers and transferred a maturing ISA into one and used the other for this year’s contribution. I haven’t split my 2024/25 contribution between two but I understand that is also possible.

Banks and building societies don’t have to offer the more flexible approach. So you need to find the ones that do.

Even before the change the Nationwide allowed members to open two with them subject to the £20k limit. They were in a minority of providers at the time. It took the HMRC change to allow the same approach across multiple providers.  

etienneg

You are correct that you can now have more than one ISA with current (tax) year funds without breaking ISA law. Unfortunately not all ISA suppliers have caught up with this change (as you have found) and there are examples of their web sites not yet showing it correctly.

It's not compulsory for any ISA supplier (call them X) to let you have more than one such ISA  with X. However, they can't stop you having another with Y. So I think your understanding is correct.