ISA round up: start of the 24/25 financial year

The best paying accounts

The financial year began on 6 April, and now there’s a whole new £20,000 ISA allowance available for savers and investors. Here’s our pick of where to put your cash.

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New rules reminder

A quick recap on the new rules for ISAs in 2024/25, the big one being you can now pay into more than one of the same time of ISA during the year. This gives you the option to have some of your money fixed (perhaps across different fixed terms) and also easy access. You can read more about these in my full guide to how many ISAs you can have.

That’s the theory at least. Banks can choose not to apply the new rules, so they might just let you have a single ISA with them rather than a mix. Coventry Building Society are one who’ve decided to allow this. They also won’t allow partial transfers in from previous ISAs – another new rule that’s optional.

That doesn’t stop you opening up accounts with more than one bank or building society, but it may be frustrating.

Rates have fallen

There were some decent rates available at the start of March 2024, and as expected many were withdrawn as the 5 April deadline approached. I expected to see some decent competition with the new year, but sadly it’s not appeared. I thought maybe it was because the new allowances kicked in over the weekend, so delayed writing this, but if anything they’ve continued to fall.

Now, I don’t know why this is. Perhaps it’s those new rules, and providers are nervous about bringing in new customers. Or maybe it’s just in anticipation of forthcoming base rate cuts.

Do you need an ISA?

You’re still going to beat ISA rates outside of an ISA in most cases. The only exception is easy access – though there are other ways to get higher rates outside of ISAs. All are detailed in our best buy savings tables.

Of course, if you go over your Personal Savings Allowance, then you need to factor in what that’d do to the headline rate. And in all cases you’d be better to move money to an ISA after you’ve reached your tax-free threshold.

Best Non-ISA rate	After 20% tax	After 40% tax	Best Cash ISA rate
Easy access: 5.06%	4.05%	3.04%	5.1%
1 year: 5.16%	4.13%	3.1%	4.76%
2 year: 5.07%	4.06%	3.04%	4.62%
3 year: 4.7%	3.76%	2.82%	4.39%
4 year: 4.5%	3.6%	2.7%	4.05%
5 year: 4.55%	3.64%	2.73%	4.16%

Trading212 to launch Cash ISA

Before we get into the best Cash ISAs, just a heads up that Trading212 have announced a Cash ISA will launch in May paying 5.2% and be protected by the full FSCS. That’s different to the current offering where you can hold cash in a Stocks & Shares ISA and receive the same rate – but without the full protection.

When I have more information on this I’ll share it with you, but if you’re not investing it makes sense to hold off going down the existing route for now.

Best Easy & Limited Access Cash ISAs

The top Cash ISAs are all app based, which means you need to sign up via your smart phone.

• Plum (5.17% AER variable including 0.88% bonus for one year): min £100
  • max 3 withdrawals
  • Not flexible
  • Transfers in
  • Transfers get lower 4.29% rate
  • Interest calculated daily but paid monthly
  • Lose interest if withdraw mid-month

• Moneybox (5.16% AER variable including 0.91% bonus for one year): min £500
  • max 3 withdrawals
  • Not flexible
  • Transfers in
  • Interest calculated daily but paid annually

• Chip (5.1% AER variable, tracking at 0.15 below the Bank of England base rate): min £1
  • Money held with Clearbank
  • Flexible
  • No transfers in
  • Interest calculated daily but paid monthly

• Zopa (5.08% AER variable including a 0.5% bonus until 6 May 2025): min £1
  • Transfers in
  • Flexible
  • Interest calculated daily but paid monthly

If none of these work for you, lower paying options can be opened online, by post, over the phone or in person, including:

Online easy access Cash ISAs

• Cynergy (4.9% AER variable): Transfers in / not flexible
• Family Building Society (4.86% AER variable): Transfers in / not flexible

Postal easy access Cash ISAs

• Family Building Society (4.86% AER variable): Transfers in / not flexible
• Tipton and Cosely Building Society (4.85% AER variable): No transfers / not flexible

In-person (National) easy access Cash ISAs

• Virgin Money (4.76% AER variable): Transfers in / Flexible

Find more options in our ISA best buy tables

Best fixed Cash ISAs

At least one option for each term length can be opened by post or in person.

• Virgin Money One year fix (5.05%)- open to current account holders
• Shawbrook Bank One year fix (4.76%)
• OakNorth Bank Two year fix (4.62%)
• Furness Building Society Two year fix (4.62%)
• OakNorth Bank Three year fix (4.39%)
• UBL Three year fix (4.39%)
• UBL Four year fix (4.05%)
• Zopa Four year fix (4.01%)
• UBL Five year fix (4.16%)
• Close Brothers Five year fix (4.05%)

Best Cash Lifetime ISAs

• Moneybox LISA (4.4% AER, drops to 3.5% after one year)
• Tembo LISA (formally Nude) (4.3% AER variable)
• Paragon Bank LISA (3.51% AER)
• Beehive Money (3.5% AER variable

Best Junior ISAs

You can open via the post or in branch

• Coventry Building Society (4.95% AER variable): min £1 (open via post/branch)
• Loughborough Building Society (4.8% AER variable): min £1 (open via post/branch)
• Leek Building Society (4.75% AER variable): min £10 (open via post/branch)
• Skipton Building Society (4.75% AER variable): min £1 (open via post/branch)
• Stafford Building Society (4.75% AER variable): min £1 (open via post/branch)
• Newbury Building Society (4.65% AER variable): min £50 (open via post/branch)
• Earl Shilton Building Society (4.6% AER variable): min £10 (open via post/branch)
• Family Building Society (4.6% AER variable paid at £3,000 or 4.35% at £1,000): min £1 (open via post/branch)

You can open online

• NS&I (4% AER variable): min £1 (open online)
• Tesco Bank (4% AER variable): min £1 (open via online/phone)

Stocks & Shares ISA offers

We don’t cover investing in detail here at Be Clever With Your Cash, so we won’t be looking at all the providers out there.

But if you’re after low-cost index funds, then the cheapest ISAs will probably be Trading212 and InvestEngine as there are no fees associated with having an ISA on those platforms (the place you go to in order to buy your investments). Plus there are a couple of decent offers running this month too (more on these in a moment).

Of course the funds you buy will have their own fees, so you’ll need to research what you want to invest in and the total costs for those – in some cases other platforms might work out better.

That’s especially the case if you’re keen to buy different shares or actively managed funds as these might not be available or come with higher costs. In those situations it’s possible a different platform will be better and / or cheaper for those purposes.

Remember with investing your money could rise or fall in value. As a result it’s suggested you put your money away for at least five years, which hopefully allows funds to recover if they do dip. That means if you need to access your cash sooner than that then cash savings might be a better option.

Best Stocks & Shares ISA offers

• Trading212: 1% cashback on new deposits
• InvestEngine: Up to £2,500 bonus on transfers

More details on both these offers in our investment deals page.