Cash ISAs are pretty much unnecessary nowadays. If you have income of £17,570 or less, the first £5k of interest income is tax free. If you're a basic rate tax payer (less than £50k income) then the first £1000 of interest is tax free. For higher rate tax payers (£50k to £150k income), the first £500 of interest is tax free (above £150k there is no tax free interest). Even taking the lowest of these (£500) and the best instant access savings rate (0.4%), that's £125k of savings. I'd question whether that much should just be sitting in a savings account for any significant period of time, rather than being invested.So you shouldn't be hung up on whether a savings account is an ISA or not - look for the one with the best combination of access and interest rate for you.Generally, interest rates are very low. There are a few instant access accounts at around 0.35% to 0.5% but most seem to be around 0.25% or less. Even accounts where you lock your money away for 5 years are not offering much more than 1% (there's one or two offering 1.3% or 1.5% - but not many).Even so, by average current standards, 0.01% is low - although there's a lot of accounts offering that!With investments, you have a £12,300 capital gains tax allowance every year and the first £2,000 of dividends is also tax free - so again, you should look at what you want to invest in first and then worry about how to do that most tax efficiently, rather than thinking about tax first
Andrzej Kowalski ● 1936d