An ISA, or Individual Savings Account, allows you to invest up to £20,000 each tax year without you having to pay a penny of tax on any interest or gains you make.
With an ISA you can save money as cash (in a cash ISA), invest in the stock market (in a Stocks & Shares ISA), lend your money to other individuals or companies as a loan (in an Innovative Finance ISA), or save towards your first home and/or retirement (in a Lifetime ISA). Your annual allowance can be used across all four types of ISAs but the maximum you can save in a Lifetime ISA is £4,000 per tax year.
You can transfer your money between the different types of ISAs, however please remember you can only subscribe to one of each ISA types, Cash ISA, Stock and Shares ISA, Innovative Finance ISA and Lifetime ISA in each tax year, up to the combined annual subscription limit.
And here at Virgin Money, we have a range of Cash ISAs for you to choose from, and will soon be launching our new Stocks and Shares ISA. However we don’t currently offer an Innovative Finance ISA or a Lifetime ISA.
In our range we offer Easy Access Cash ISAs, Limited Access Cash ISAs and Fixed Rate Cash ISAs, allowing you to save in the way that best suits you.
With the option to top up and take out as often as you wish, you can save flexibly with our Easy Access Cash ISAs. If you know you won't need to access your money regularly, our Limited Access Cash ISAs may be a better option to make more of your savings. Whilst these accounts limit the number of times you can dip into your savings, you can still top up as often as you like.
If you're happy putting your money away for at least a year for a definite return, you can save tax-free with our Fixed Rate Cash ISAs.
From 6 April 2016, ‘ISA flexibility’ came into effect and could significantly change the way you use your ISA.
All Flexible ISAs will allow you to withdraw money from your ISA and replace withdrawn funds within the current tax year without affecting your ISA limit of £20,000.
Some ISAs do not offer this flexibility. You can still withdraw money from your account. However, if you replace it later, this will use up more of your annual ISA allowance. And depending on how much you have already contributed, you might find you aren't able to replace all of it because you would exceed the annual limit.
