How to transfer money from one ISA to another?

Just go the people at the Halifax (not RBS) and ask them for a transfer-in form. Fill it in, give it back to them, and they will pull the money from RBS for you.

It doesn't matter which tax year you do it in, since these transfers don't count for the purpose of the annual limit.

The Halifax ISA has a better interest rate than the RBS one so I wish to transfer the 3000 from my RBS account to my Halifax account. If I simply take out the money from my RBS account and then pay it into my Halifax account, I won't be allowed to because I've already reached the pay-in limit for this year. I don't want to do this at the end of the tax year either because I want to be able to pay in an additional

3000 income into my Halifax ISA after April.

How can I transfer the money from my RBS account to my Halifax account this tax year? Or more generally, how can I do it without effecting my pay-in limit for this tax year? I just don't know who to talk to or what to say to set up this kind of transfer.

I've spoke to several people at the Halifax and RBS (including savings managers) and they say they are not able to do this kind of transfer. However, I've read on these newsgroup and on the internet that they are possible.

It just doesn't make sense to me if you can't. If I had a huge sum of money in one ISA and another bank starting offering an ISA with ten times the interest rate, there would be nothing I could do to take advantage of it. ......................................................................................................................... Go the bank/building society that you wish to transfer to and ask them for a Mini cash ISA application form. Some institutions will have everything in one ie a transfer form which is what you require. Fill in the transfer request together with documentary evidence of the ISA you want to close and hand in to bank/building society that you are transferring to. ( I would also write a letter telling them that your request is a transfer not a request to close) Some will tell you that they are unable to do this and if so do the reverse -ie send the application form letter and ISA details to first ISA provider telling them that you want to transfer balance to new provider. Personally if any provider told me that they were unable to accept or help me transfer an ISA I would not touch them with a bargepole. Eric

Go to that Halifax and tell them that you wish to transfer a cash ISA to them. They have to initiate the process. On no account try to do it yourself, because the funds will move outside the ISA wrapper and that will be lost for ever.

It should be possible to make the transfer, although their web site is silent on the process. However the leaflet which I have says that you can transfer a Halifax ISA saver to another financial organisation offering the same type of ISA. That is called "Interest rates and Points to Note" and the comment is on the back page under "Points to Note". They must allow transferring in.

In message , Eric Jones writes

Some of the deposit takers who offer the highest rate on ISAs dont want loads of dosh in them because they lose money by doing so. They just offer a high rate so as to appear good in tables etc., and once they've got your measly £3k they can bombard you with marketing garbage. No ISA provider HAS to offer transfers in or out if they dont want to.

This concerns me a bit. Can anyone confirm that this is true? Specifically the part about not having to offer transfers out, surely this means they would basically have you over a barrel if you had a large amount of money in an isa with them as you'd never be able to move it to another isa without losing the tax benefit? Doesn't sound right to me.

transfer.

transfer-in

See, this is how I expected it to work. When I was opening my Halifax ISA account, I asked the savings manager if this kind of transfer was possible. She didn't say anything like "we don't offer those types of transfers here", she seemed completely unaware that those types of transfers were possible at any bank. I also spoke to the savings manager at RBS and she seemed unaware those types of transfer existed either. I don't mean just in my specific case either, I asked them if it is ever possible (e.g. with different banks, accounts) and they both said no.

Thanks for all the replies everyone. I'll keep trying and post what happens if anyone else has the same problem. I'm going to try going to the Halifax with some of their literature that mentions ISA transfers, if I can find some.

Wilson by Savings manager do you mean someone in authority or a sales person who's sole purpose is to sell you something at all costs and probably worked in a travel agents last month, did a week's course and is now an account manager??

I note that, if you search for mini cash ISAs on moneysupermarket.com, it lists Halifax's "ISA Saver Direct" at 5.15% and when you click on "details" it shows "Transfer In" as "Yes" and "Transfer Out" as with "No Penalty".

It also lists RBS's "Instant Access ISA" at 3.7% (eek)(*), but, interestingly enough, shows "Transfer In" as "No". But "transfer out" is still "no penalty", and this means (unless moneysupermarket have got it wrong) that a transfer from RBS to Halifax should be possible, but not the other way round (which you wouldn't want to do anyway as RBS's rate is so bad).

(*) Actually the 3.7% is for £1 up. This actually rises to 5.1% at £15k, but below £12k is still only 4.75%, whereas Halifax is 5.15% even for small balances.

At Halifax, the woman that first opened my account had called herself the savings manager, as in if they did those kind of ISA transfers she would know about it. When I went back a few weeks later, I asked one of the other staff about the transfer, and when she didn't know she asked the woman that opened my account as she would have been the person who knew the answer.

I phone RBS direct banking and the guy on the phone put me onto his manager after some discussion. That person also said it wasn't possible and tried to convince me to transfer the money in the next tax year.

I don't know what their exact positions were, but I got two definite "no" answers from the most qualified people present at the time; which is a little worrying if they're wrong (I assume they are now).

That's why I'm switching, the RBS rates are bad even if you're on the biggest interest tier for a large balance. It's actually a 60 day ISA, so the rates are a little better, but if I can get more I would like that.

I'm not sure I fully understand why banks would let you transfer your ISA balance out like this voluntarily actually. I know you can, but if they didn't have to, why would they want to make it easy for you to send all your tax free saving to another bank?

In that case write a formal complaint to Halifax Customer relations dept. stating that if you do not get a satisfactorily reply that you want to take this to Ombudsman and National papers. It is ridiculous that an institution as large as Halifax can take money from you under the isa umbrella and refuse to transfer it to another institution if they are offering better rates. If it went as far as Ombudsman I do not think they would stand a chance and the nationals would make mince meat out of them Eric

Well, as you have found, they're *not* making it easy. :-(

But, to answer your question, if they didn't allow it, it would interfere with the ability to shift your savings to follow the best interest rates, just as it is possible to do with non-ISA savings, provided you stick to the relevant notice periods. I expect in the case of RBS being, as you say, a 60-day ISA, then the transfer-out would be subject to the same notice as "normal" withdrawals.

The ISA is supposed to be a government incentive to encourage people to save long-term, since the rules, by limiting what you can put in, effectively discourage temporary withdrawals under penalty of having to put up with lower (i.e. taxed) interest rates. It's not supposed to be a scheme to help banks to hang on to their customers and gently wind down their interest rates.

In fact, it's disappointing to see that typical ISA rates tend to lie

*lower* than typical non-ISA savings rates.

Yeah, that's what I tried to say to the people I spoke to. I used the example of somebody having, say, £50,000 in an ISA account and the bank either drops your interest rate way below the competition or another bank starts offering a amazing interest rate. If you couldn't transfer without it counting towards your tax limit, you would be stuck with a bad ISA account because you could only move £3000 per year to another ISA (unless you wanted to move all your money to a non-ISA account) and banks could use this to trap your money with them.

I know an Ombudsman is someone you can address complaints to, but which Ombudsman are you referring to? Who would I write to?

Just to be clear, I'm trying to move ISA money from the RBS to The Halifax, but several people at both banks have told me they are not aware such transfer exists (e.g. they didn't say they do exist but they don't do them, they've never heard of them).

You're right though, it is very disconcerting that I have to put in so much personal investigation so I can tell them how their own accounts are meant to operate.

In message , Eric Jones writes

Come on be reasonable, We all know that it isnt a weeks course.

At my local branch its 15 mins.

In message , john boyle writes

Ever wary of the awesome presence of Skitt's Law, I could suggest that a

15 minute lesson is just about long enough to learn all about the elision and its role in a modern, language.

What's a "modern, language"?

I knew it! Skitt's law triumphed! I meant to write: "...In a modern, caring language."

........................................................................................................... How times have changed LOL For the first 6 months of my banking training my only interaction with customers was to answer the telephone. In those days we had to take calls ourselves!! No call centres!