Tembo - are they any good

clairec666

The important question is, was the ISA you withdrew from a flexible one? If so, you can repay the £19,999 into it (new money, DON'T withdraw from Tembo) and transfer it at a later date. Sounds to me like you haven't overpaid into ISAs this tax year so there won't be any negative repercussions.

sdm1985

masonic said:

If it is a simple case of paying £20k into Tembo and then withdrawing £19,999 from Tembo, while unaware that wouldn't change the fact you have no remaining ISA allowance to use anywhere else, then yes it is a mistake people have been making every tax year for decades. Even flexible ISAs do not permit you to do this (since 2024).

HMRC will tell you to do nothing and that they'll be in touch after the tax year is ended and they receive the annual returns from all ISA managers.

It is possible they will do nothing if this is the first time you've done something like this.

I'm still a little confused about the mention of putting the £20k into Tembo "from a flexible ISA".

When you say even flexible ISAs don’t permit this since 2024, can you share what this means?

Sorry, the £20,000 funds placed into Tembo on 06/04/25 was just money from my savings account.

Since this, historic cash ISA funds (pre 2025/26) went from MoneyFarm to Trading212 as a portfolio transfer. Then of course 2025/26 was TEMBO, manual withdraw £19,999 was put in MoneyFarm and now a portfolio transfer to Chip. T212 send the £20,000 back to me bank for the Tembo 2025/26 over subscription.

sdm1985

clairec666 said:

The important question is, was the ISA you withdrew from a flexible one? If so, you can repay the £19,999 into it (new money, DON'T withdraw from Tembo) and transfer it at a later date. Sounds to me like you haven't overpaid into ISAs this tax year so there won't be any negative repercussions.

Hello, good evening.

No, sorry this was £20,000 cash at the start of the 2025/16 tax tear straight into Tembo.

masonic

sdm1985 said:

masonic said:

If it is a simple case of paying £20k into Tembo and then withdrawing £19,999 from Tembo, while unaware that wouldn't change the fact you have no remaining ISA allowance to use anywhere else, then yes it is a mistake people have been making every tax year for decades. Even flexible ISAs do not permit you to do this (since 2024).

HMRC will tell you to do nothing and that they'll be in touch after the tax year is ended and they receive the annual returns from all ISA managers.

It is possible they will do nothing if this is the first time you've done something like this.

I'm still a little confused about the mention of putting the £20k into Tembo "from a flexible ISA".

When you say even flexible ISAs don’t permit this since 2024, can you share what this means?.

Before April 2024, when it was only possible to subscribe to one ISA of each type, it was possible to withdraw from a flexible cash ISA and then deposit into a S&S ISA (or other type) without using any additional allowance. This was abolished when the restriction of only subscribing to one ISA of each type per tax year was relaxed. Though it was never permitted to freely move money between cash ISAs without using the provider to transfer it.

sdm1985 said:

Since this, historic cash ISA funds (pre 2025/26) went from MoneyFarm to Trading212 as a portfolio transfer. Then of course 2025/26 was TEMBO, manual withdraw £19,999 was put in MoneyFarm and now a portfolio transfer to Chip. T212 send the £20,000 back to me bank for the Tembo 2025/26 over subscription.

That's a lot of activity - more than I've done in about 10 years. So the money withdrawn from Tembo was paid into MoneyFarm by you? Then it was transferred by Chip into its ISA product? So that money is invalid.

Whereas the money in T212 was just the pre-2025/26 money from MoneyFarm based on your first sentence. Or did the Tembo>MoneyFarm>Chip money also get transferred to T212? I guess it must have been for T212 to have taken the action they did.

clairec666

I'm very confused now - can't quite tell which ISA you've withdrawn from and which one you're trying to pay into.

If you've withdrawn from Tembo, then unfortunately you can't replace it, the ISA isn't flexible. Nothing else you can do.

Quickmick

My new provider requested a transfer of my Tembo easy access (what a joke) cash isa on 7th May. Still not happened, one fob off after another. Getting rather worried now. I've had lots of ISAs over the years and never had any issues with any account before. Please read the one star reviews on trust pilot. There is a common theme. 

andyhicks88

Everywhere has terrible reviews on trustpilot. I've never had an issue with Tembo. There will be individual bad experiences a some point with every single provider.

pete64_2

The facts guarantee is not directly with Tembo. The guarantee is on the basis that they will put your money in accounts which are covered. There's nothing wrong with that, but it makes me nervous.

pete64_2

That's fscs not facts - autocorrect 

SFCooper

They take forever to transfer funds to a new provider.