the richest man in atherstone

Update 6th Oct 2008 - Following the devastating news of IceSave's parent company, Landsbanki, being taken over by the government I have begun to make updates of the situation on my main IceSave webpage.

Following on from my previous post, Landsbanki's IceSave have recently announced their excellent Easy Access ISA. At 6.10% gross (or 5.94% if you opt for interest to be paid monthly), it is the best Mini-Cash ISA on the market. In addition, IceSave will guarantee to beat the Bank of England Base Rate by 0.30% until 31 January 2011 and at least match the Base Rate until 31 January 2013. There is no notice period or penalty for withdrawing your money or transferring it to a different provider in the future. You also have the option of transferring your previous Mini-Cash ISA's by filling in a transfer request form.

The only down-side seems to be that you need to put at least £1000 into it, whereas other products accept as little as £1. However, if you've got a grand or more, I believe that this is the one to choose.

I've been using IceSave's Easy Access Savings Account for over a year now (see my review of this account here) and I've been very impressed with the service I've received and the interest rate, so I'm planning on opening one of their ISA's in the next week or so.

I actually haven't opened an ISA this tax year (I moved house so wanted to keep the cash liquid in case it was required), so hopefully it'll be sorted before the end of March to maximise my tax-free allowance - and then I can open another one!

Once opened, I'll be sure to write a report of my experience.

UPDATE: Five minutes after writing this, I went to the IceSave website and read that because I already had a savings account with IceSave, I could apply for an ISA from their Internet Banking website. I logged on and the whole process was complete in about 2 minutes. I simply declared that I hadn't already opened an ISA this year, chose where I wanted the money to be deposited from and inputted my National Insurance number. I was informed that my ISA would be up and running in two days and I could view it from my existing Internet Banking with IceSave - if only all banks would make it this easy!