thanks for the explanation, i'm new to all this ISA stuff, to be honest running a few calcs shows that there's not that much difference between keeping it where it is at 4.75% and transferring it to a new policy at over 6% as i'm going to take all the money out in under a year to use as a house deposit

nevertheless, hsbc have annoyed me so it's all getting transferred anyway!

As someone has already said. You can only transfer your ISA and NOT open another one.

A transfer does not affect your ISA allocation for the tax year. Bear in mind that you must transfer the full ISA and not part of it. So in this case you would need to go to your provider your taking it to and fill out a transfer authority form to move it.

A&L are the highest paying ISA account that accepts transfers into the Direct ISA. Northern Rock also have an Access ISA which is the highest fixed ISA at 6% and you can get unlimited access to the funds via a postal request. As mentioned though Abbey and A&L can be done online if thats what your interested in.

Hope this information helps.

thanks for the suggestions, however if i open up yet another ISA (say the A&L Direct ISA 4) would i then not have opened up 3 isas in the same tax year?

I'm going to get HSBC to cancel the application for the e-ISA and then will speak to A&L to see what i can do with the existing funds which are getting eroded by inflation!

Cheers,

Jambo349

You are correct, you cannot pay into 2 different cash ISAs in a single tax year. However there is a way round this for you...

Pay the remaining £2400 into the HSBC ISA. Open a new cash ISA with a provider that accepts transfers in (eg. A&L Direct ISA 4). Make sure you tell them it is just for a transfer and get them to do it for you.

If you do it this way, you will get your cueent £3600 and the previous balance over to an account paying 6.25%.

This account does include a 1% bonus until 31st May 2009, so you may need to move it again then, but in the mean time, you'll get much better returns.

Hope this helps...

I took out an HSBC cash isa in 07/08 tax year with an interest rate of 4.75% and invested £3,000. On 8th April 08 I invested another £1,200 into it, however having made the payment i then noticed that HSBC were offering a new product called e-ISA (which is exactly the same as the isa i have i reckon!) with an interest rate of 6%!

Am I stuck with my existing ISA at 4.75% for the whole of 08/09 tax year because I have now contributed to it in the 08/09 tax year? Or is there anyway i can open up the new e-ISA and use this to invest another £2,400 thereby bringing the total up to the £3600 maximum per tax year? I have read you cannot have more than 1 cash isa per tax year however as they would both be with HSBC is there some way around this?

Thanks,

Jambo349