Cash ISAs

A cash ISA is a savings account, but unlike some other savings accounts you don’t pay tax on the interest you earn. Cash ISAs can be attractive to people who normally pay tax on their savings, and you can open a cash ISA as long as you are a UK resident aged 18+.

There are many different cash ISAs available – the most popular are:

• Easy access ISA
  With an easy access ISA, you can make as many withdrawals as you’d like.
  
  
• Junior ISA
  A long-term, tax-free savings account for children, a Junior ISA is available for children ages 18 and under.
  
  
• Fixed rate ISA
  A fixed rate ISA means you’re agreeing to lock your savings away for a set amount of time, but you’re also receiving a fixed rate of interest during that time.
  
  
• Notice ISA
  With a notice ISA, you’ll have access to your savings by giving a notice period, and, if you need to, you can make emergency withdrawals subject to an interest charge.

Each tax year (6th April-5th April) there’s a limit on how much money you can put into your ISAs. For the current tax year, the limit is £20,000.

You can have more than one ISA, but you can’t pay into more than one cash ISA per tax year. Some ISAs will allow you to transfer previous tax years savings into a new ISA.

Yes, your money is safe in one of our regular savings accounts. The Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) is there to protect your money if your financial services provider goes out of business; you’ll normally get your money back within seven days. All of our savings accounts are FSCS protected up to £85,000 per depositor. FSCS is funded by the financial services industry, and is free to consumers.

This entirely depends on the terms and type of cash ISA you have. This will determine how often you can withdraw money, whether you will be charged to withdraw and how much interest you’ll lose (if any).

This is dependent on the type of ISA that you have. If your ISA is ‘flexible’, you can take out cash then put it back in during the same tax year, unless you are over your annual limit. If your cash ISA isn’t flexible then you won’t be able to replace any money that’s been withdrawn.