eToro Cash ISA - any experience?

Jarek_P

1.e Toro cash ISA  currently pays 4.58%  if you have enough nerves to keep your money with them for the full 12 months. Moneyfarm actually warns you in the small print that they will only pay 3.85%. The remaining 0.8% is to be paid at the end of the 12-month period, but they state that they are “not responsible for any delay in payment of this bonus interest.” How encouraging is this?

2.They do not notify you in advance when they change the interest rate. They say you have to check their website, meaning there is no way to confirm whether you are being paid the correct amount of interest. Who checks their  ISa account daily

3.Unlike other providers, they do not pay interest from the day your Cash ISA is funded (following an ISA transfer). Your Cash ISA will start earning interest “1–2 days after they receive your funds.” Therefore, if you transfer money to them on a Friday, they will start paying interest on Tuesday, if you are lucky.

4.I requested cancellation of my ISA transfer within the cooling-off period following the initial !!!!!!-up with adding interest to my account (which should be at least 14 days), and they stopped communicating.

5. It is  advertised as cash ISA but in order to get the maximum interest rate of 4.58% you have to keep your money there for a fixed term of 12 months . Therefore it is  a fixed term ISA . You can find a fixed term ISAs  from reputable  providers  with similar returns . The  stress involved  , time spend on emails and phone calls is not worth it .  

MoneySuperMarket should really check these kinds of Cash ISA providers before advertising them.

Eyeful

When I am going to open an account with a company I have not used before or ever heard of, I first ask an AI chat bot two questions:
1. What is know about company XYZ.
2. Are there any customer reviews (good or bad) made about XYZ.

I then do more research into XYZ if I decide I want  open an account with them.

Hooli

Update

So, after alot of frustration, I finally received a solution from eToro about my £34 stuck in my GBP wallet.  Here is their explanation:

What happened is that we had to manually onboard you to our IBAN program. We are aware of this limitation and our Engineering team is working on a fix. I am sorry again for the inconvenience caused.

So, it appears there was an issue with their system. I had tried withdrawing to NatWest and Nationwide. I wonder how many others this affected?  I have now been able to withdraw my funds.  In all it took 28 days to get my money back.

I would definitely warn others about eToro, being sent round in circles via their bot and emails.  I had to resort to contacting them via FaceBook as could not find a telephone number, although I do have one now!

I have also since, looked on Trusted Reviews, that makes for some very interesting reading and I wish i'd have gone their first.  Although, it looks like I got off easy compared to others.  Worth a read if you're thinking of opening the eToro Moneyfarm ISA. https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.etoro.com?search=isa

Hooli

This may hopefully help, albeit a bit late for me as I couldn't wait any longer for a reply as rates were dropping quickly elsewhere.  I emailed them on 8th Jan and they replied today (13th).  This is their reply to my question of when would I not be covered by FSCS protection.

It’s great to hear you’re looking to consolidate your ISAs. I can clear up how the protection works and what the current rates look like for your Cash ISA.

1. How FSCS Protection Works

Because your account is managed by Moneyfarm, your money is protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).

• Cash Protection: Your cash is held in "Client Money" accounts with major banks (like Barclays or Lloyds). If one of those banks were to fail, you are protected up to £85,000.

• Moneyfarm Failure: If Moneyfarm were to fail, your money is "ring-fenced" and held separately from our own company assets. This means it cannot be used to pay our creditors. You are also protected up to £85,000 by the FSCS in the unlikely event that there is a shortfall in these ring-fenced funds.

When are you NOT covered? FSCS protection does not cover you for investment performance. For example, if you were in a Stocks & Shares ISA and the market went down, that loss is not covered. However, since you are in a Cash ISA, your principal is protected from market fluctuations.

2. Interest Rates

Our Cash ISA interest rate is variable, meaning it can change based on the Bank of England base rate.

• Current Rate: As of today, the rate is 4.49% AER.

• Applicability: This rate will apply to your current balance and the additional £20,000 as soon as the transfer is completed and the funds land in your Moneyfarm account.

Hope this helps someone. 🙏🏻

horatiog

Just a bit of feedback re: E-Toro. I chose them for shovelling £20k of my savings into this financial year (2026/27)……and I'm wishing I hadn't.!!!!

This year's deposits were slightly more complicated than normal, as I was depositing £6.1k from Natwest & £13.9k from Ulsterbank. NB: These two banks are part of the same group (NatWest Group - formerly RBS Group) and basically run the same transactional software!

So - my experience from "the off" with the E-Toro website is "clunky" to say the least. You have to burrow down through the side menu (which is scrolled off the bottom of the screen to start with), to find the "Cash ISA" section. They seem focused on S&S Investing, Bitcoin, etc and Cash ISA seems a "very poor relation". When I found the relevant page, however, it confirmed the promo rate of 4.81% (as MSE had stated at that time), if I kept the mony in for 12mo - which I fully intended to!

Next problem, there was a warning box on this page, stating to the fact that, to avoid delays in deposits, you were required to upload PDF format statement from each of your funding accounts - except, every time you tried to upload the PDF statement - it said something along the lines of "an error has occured", along with absolutely zero help as to the specifics of the "error" or how to resolve it !

So I thought, maybe download the app onto my phone and try to upload the PDF that way….same result…..repeated occurences of "there's been an error". Doh!

And then I tried to summon online help - and disappeared down several other "rabbit holes", receiving zero help - only some phone numbers that went to voicemail or "bots" that were of no help - or online "bots" that were equally zero help! No hint of human help, whatsoever!

So then I thought I'd try a bit of "self-help" and experiment with converting the PDFs to JPGs (even though the website & app specify PDF copies of the statements - and, what do you know - E-Toro immediately uploaded these JPGs without any complaint whatsoever !?!?!? However, just to be sure, I thought I would flag this issue with E-Toro, just in case they DID need PDFs (for whatever reason?) Having given up with the "help" system via the app & website", I decided to do some web research and found some help on this very forum - somebody who had also experienced problems with E-Toro and found an email address (hello@moneyfarm.com) to summon help. (Apparently, E-Toro just "front" the Cash ISA and its Moneyfarm who actually manage it!)

On to the next step, Again - far more complicated than previous Cash-ISA deposits from previous years. You had to "register" each of your funding accounts and get a special "Transaction Reference" for each deposit which MUST be attached to each "Faster Payments" instruction you raise to avoid "any delays" (Hah!) I dutifully did this and created the transfers to E-Toro from both my banks. (Within minutes of each other!)

This was all on the 6th April. Was expecting both transactions to hit my E-Toro wallet the next day (7th April) …or at least on the 8th (given that the 6th was a bank holiday - although how that stops electronic transactions - gawd only knows!)

So I waited - Nothing all day on the 8th, until 17:00, then I get a message saying "You’re fully funded"….but, on investigation of my app & website (again you have burrow down to the Cash ISA page), I found two problems: Problem #1: Only the £6.1k from Natwest had arrived; the £13.9k from Ulsterbank was absent. (Despite both amounts being sent using the same banking system at the same time!) Problem #2: The advertised rate that, which up until now had been proudly advertised as 4.81% had mysteriously dropped to 4.78%. Co-incidence?

Despite zero response from my first email (as above - pointing out probs with PDF statement uploads), I decided to use the email again - So fired the following email to them at 17:30 on 08/04:

Can you help me please?
Background: I opened a Cash ISA with you on 30th March to take advantage of the advertised 4.81% return, but only funded this account on 6th April so that it counted against my 2026/27 £20k allowance. I am part funding from two of my current accounts: £6,100 from my Natwest account and £13,900 from my Ulsterbank account (making a total of £20k). I initiated these transfers at the same time of 06/04, using the references your website provided. It has taken a couple of days but, just now (08/04 17:00), the £6,100 deposit from Natwest has arrived in my EToro account, along with emails from you (E-Toro/Moneyfarm ) saying I am "fully funded"!!!!
Questions:
1. I am not yet "fully-funded" ! : the £13,900 from my Ulsterbank account has not arrived at E-Toro yet! Since I sent the Natwest & Ulsterbank deposits at the same time, and these 2 banks share the same transactional system; can you let me know why my Ulsterbank deposit of £13,900 has not arrived yet?
2. Before my deposit arrived from Natwest, this afternoon (08/04), the E-Toro Cash ISA was confirming that the total rate I would get would be 4.81%. (On both the app & web interface.) However, now that this deposit has arrived, I note that the advertised rate, on the app & the website, has dropped to 4.78% - can you explain?
Many thanks for any info.

Nothing heard by mid-morning on 9th April - so did a bit more research on the web (MSE forums again - this seems to be the best respository of suggestions!) and found another email that I could try: support@moneyfarm.com. So I forwarded my original email. Then, at 14:11 on the Thursday, I received the following reply:

Thank you for your email.

I have checked your account and can confirm we have received both bank statements, we have verified your Natwest Bank account but are currently processing your Ulster Bank account. As soon as the funds are verified, they will be allocated to your account.  I’m happy to clarify how your Cash ISA interest works.

Your ISA rate has two components:
Base variable rate: Currently up to 3.78%% AER, which can move up or down depending on market conditions. 
The base rate is calculated daily and applied on each working day, and any changes (increases or decreases) are reflected on your dashboard.

Secured boost: 1.00%, fixed for the 12-month term. 
This is calculated daily but credited at the end of the term. You should expect to see it in your account no later than the month following the anniversary of your first deposit.
This gives a total annualised interest of up to 4.78% AER.

A few important points to note:

1. Interest accrues daily but is expressed as an annualised rate (AER), which shows the return over a full 12-month period assuming funds remain invested.
2. Early in the term, the accrued interest may appear modest, this is normal and reflects how annualised rates are calculated.
3. The variable rate is based on market conditions and the performance of the underlying qualifying money market funds, and not tied to the time since your deposit.

This structure is designed to help your ISA achieve up to the advertised rate over the 12-month term, while benefiting from daily compounding.

I hope this clarifies everything. If you have any further questions about your ISA, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. 

Kind regards,

Scott Norton
Client Services

Hmmm!

So then, Friday comes and goes - still no £13.5k deposit. Sat & Sun - ditto!; now Monday has come & gone (I am writing this at 19:00!) - still no deposit!

In summary, that money, which left my Ulsterbank account on 6th, has STILL not arrived in my E-Toro/Moneyfarm Cash ISA by 13th! So that's an entire week that the money has been earning interest for somebody - but not for me!!!!

Maybe I am being over-reactive here (?) - but with my experience of funding Cash ISAs in previous years - it has been an "overnight thing", this experience is making me very nervous that I have "chosen unwisely" this year. (Especially on getiing the "bait-and switch" interest drop and reading Scott's email with all the caveats and "get-outs" with regard to how they calculate and post the interest!) With the advent of the "Faster Payment" system, I would argue that we have grown to expect that our money will NOT disappear for days on end (like it did in the "last century"!)

Hope this helps other folk considering E-Toro / Moneyfarm for their Cash-ISA this year.

Harry.