According to the most recent figures released by the Building Societies Association, the demand for cash Individual Savings Accounts is on the increase. This is in sharp contrast to demand for stocks and shares based ISA's, which have fallen for the first time since 1999.
Our View:
Cash Individual Savings Accounts are excellent value for money and every taxpayer should have one. The returns are some of the best available and they are tax-free. Many people have invested into stocks and shares based ISA's in the past and have ignored the cash based option, for fear of inferior returns. But, because of weak stock market returns, cash ISA's have performed better than their stocks and shares counterparts, in general. For those people that have cashed in their stocks and shares based ISA's, we believe many are waiting until they are able to put this money into cash, and this is partly attributing to the increase in cash ISA's.