Childrens ISA - providers that can offer both cash and S&S ISAs?

mither_2

Good Morning All,

I'd like your thoughts on the following please.

I'd like to open ISAs for our one year old and three year old. My wife and I have both used up our 2025/26 allowance so can't saveany more within these accounts for them but want them to have their ownaccounts anyway.

There are currently three options as I see it.

Cash ISA (100%)

Stocks and shares ISA (100%)

Put some in a cash ISA with one provider (50%) andput some in a S&S ISA (50%) with another provider. The split isn't fixed as I'm still considered options.

I'm struggling to find any child ISA providers thatcan offer both? Any suggestions of a provider that can offer both please?

For the current finacnail year (just about to end) we will likley put a lump sum in for each of them (so as not to muiss out on the tax benefit for this year) and then in subsequent years would put money in on a monthly basis.

Given the lack of time available it may be easiest to put the money into a cash ISA now with the option to transfer into a S&S ISA later. This is particularly true where I need to do more research on S&S ISAs and where global markets are quite volatile at the moment.

Any tips appreciated!

Keep_pedalling

For that age I would stick to 100% S&Ss JISA.

refluxer

If you do decide to open one of each then it's unlikely that a provider offering the best all-round option for a S&S JISA is also going to offer the best-paying Cash JISA rate, so you would be better off choosing a different provider for each.

The current top-paying Cash JISA providers, for example, tend to be high-street building societies, many of which (I suspect) may not offer a S&S option.

https://moneyfactscompare.co.uk/isa/junior-isas/?quick-links-first=false&product-favorites-first=false&sort-order=AER&sort-order-text=Rate

mither_2

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81936703#Comment_81936703

Yes, this seems to be the case and many of them don't offer online applications so are not really convenient.

Does anyone have any experience of Hargreaves Lansdown childrens S&S ISA? My thinking was to put the funds in to a low risk grade fund for now and review in a couple of months time.

I would expect them to have a wide range of funds with different risk grades available. There are no charges and there minimum investment levels are fine. I only need invest a minimum of £100 and so may do this for both children now just to get a feel for things. I can then choose to add more before the deadline.

Any thoughts on this approach please?

Albermarle

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81936721#Comment_81936721

Hl ( and Fidelity) have no platform fees for JISAs, so either is a good choice.

 My thinking was to put the funds in to a low risk grade fund for now and review in a couple of months time.

A couple of months will tell you nothing about an investment, it is far too short a time. Even two years tells you very little.

Due to the time scale involved you should be looking at funds with a high growth potential, as 15 years plus should be enough to ride out any volatility.

Also make sure you only look at funds with low fees ( < 0.3%), and not some of the higher costs funds promoted by both platforms.

Nurse2047

I use fidelity for my children’s JISAs and it is easy to use and no fee

Trundlebelly

Second vote for a JISA with Hargreaves Lansdown, it's where I have our children's savings in an S&S ISA using an all-world, whole market accumulation fund.

mither_2

Thanks all. Yes, I will be looking for funds with lower fees and ideally just leaving the cash.

The reason I mention putting funds somewhere more stable initialy was to wait and see what happens with the war and whether the markets drop further and I then put more into children's ISAs next year. I suppose I could avoid picking the worst moemnt to deposit funds by putting cash in on a monthly basis as I do my pension. This should help avoid buying at a bad point and I don't know what a good point looks like.

masonic

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81937462#Comment_81937462

There will always be something going on in the world that could cause markets to drop, and markets can be expected to drop at least every few years. These dips become insignificant after the 15+ years the money would be invested, so it is perhaps not worth worrying too much about finding a good time to invest. Since your intention is to continue adding money, you'll be benefitting from cost-averaging to some degree anyway, but you could consider a short term money market fund to earn some interest on anything you want to phase into the higher risk investments over time.

mither_2

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81937326#Comment_81937326

Thanks for this. I decided to go with HL and now need to choose some investments. I filtered by All World and was given various options. Given that a lot of will have the same portfolio of comapanies should I just be looking for the one with the lowest fee charged? Gow ca one out perform another?

mither_2

A few people have mentioned that I should be careful about putting money into these as children can go wild abd blow the cash when they turn 18 but my view is that its up to us to educate them that they shouldn't and that this money will by default go into an adult ISA ready for when they really need it like to put towards a deposit for their fiorst home etc.