27-05-2025
Boost your cash Isa rate with tweaks that won't cost you a penny: SYLVIA MORRIS
The cash Isa is now a better product for savers than it has been in its 26-year history – but few of us use them to their full advantage.
Just a few simple tweaks in the way you save can seriously boost the interest you receive without having to put aside a penny more.
For example, many don't take advantage of the flexibility that Isas now offer, which means you can withdraw cash and add it to your balance within the same tax year without it eating away from your allowance.
That flexibility means you don't have to restrict yourself to depositing money that you are sure you won't need to access – you can even put in money that you are likely to need safe in the knowledge that you can withdraw and replace it again with ease.
You can also have multiple Isas within the same tax year – so long as you don't exceed your overall allowance.
But many savers do not take advantage and instead limit themselves to one Isa per year, which means they may not be getting the best rates overall.
It's not surprising that many miss out. Only around half of the top Isa payers offer flexibility and often make it hard to find out whether they do – hiding it in pages of terms and conditions.
Among those offering flexibility are Trading 212, Ford Money and Vida Savings. Providers that let you open more than one include Aldermore, Charter Savings Bank, Nationwide, Newcastle, Paragon, Vida Savings and Zopa.
I'd urge you to enjoy the flexibility and freedoms that the current rules afford you while you can.
After all, after years of simplifying the Isa to make it more user friendly, the Government seems intent on reversing progress and making them more restrictive once again.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves looks set to cut the cash Isa allowance so that you can save just £4,000 of your £20,000 allowance in cash – with the remainder in shares.
Banks, building societies and the Daily Mail's Hands Off Our Cash Isas campaign are fighting your corner to keep the allowance intact – but the Chancellor has failed to promise that cash Isas are safe.
Eleven years ago on July 1, 2014, the Treasury said it was making the cash Isa 'a new simpler product'.
It did this by giving us a single Isa allowance that we could split how we choose – putting it all into cash or shares or a combination of both.
Before then you could only put half the allowance into cash and if you didn't want to invest in shares you just lost that part of the allowance.
Flexibility and the ability to open multiple Isas has improved the product since. What a great shame that we're about to go into reverse.
Nationwide to pay fresh £100 bonus
Tomorrow, Nationwide reveals how it did in its last financial year to the end of March.
Our largest building society is expected to have done well enough to announce another £100 Fairer Share payment for this year to eligible members.
It comes on top of the £50 'thank you' payment that went out to 12 million members after its takeover of Virgin Money last October.
We will also learn exactly who qualifies. Last year, many savers and mortgage holders missed out because they didn't have a current account with Nationwide.
Virgin Money customers will miss out, even though they have been owned by Nationwide since the autumn, because they are not members of the society.
