Savers with a decent cash holding can earn up to 5.28% AER – smashing the current market-leading rate of 5.16% AER/gross offered on easy-access ISAs.
To get it, you’ll need to open a cash ISA via investment platform Hargreaves Lansdown.
Currently, under ISA rules, you can only pay into one cash ISA with one provider per tax year. But with the HL cash ISA, savers can spread the £20,000 annual ISA allowance across its banking partners (six in total) and savings products – fixed rate and easy access.
One of its banking partners, Charter Savings Bank – a YourMoney.com 2024 Award winner in the Best Fixed Term Savings Account Provider category – pays 5.03% AER.
However, Hargreaves is offering £25 cashback for newbies depositing £10,000, which boosts the interest to an effective rate of 5.28%. This beats the top-paying Moneybox 5.16% AER deal currently available.
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Meanwhile, those with the full £20,000 annual ISA allowance to save can get an effective interest rate of 5.15%, once the £25 cashback is included. If you’re saving up to £9,999.99, you won’t receive any cashback from Hargreaves.
The cashback offer is on until 25 April 2024 and is available to all new customers who open a cash ISA, as well as existing clients who don’t already hold a cash ISA with it. You can’t currently transfer an HL stocks and shares ISA into the HL cash ISA, or transfer any ISAs held elsewhere into the HL cash ISA.
Another important point is that you must not have subscribed to another cash ISA or used your total annual ISA allowance in other ISAs during the same tax year to open this one.
The bonus will be paid by 24 October 2024 into the Active Savings account, which you’ll need to open.
There are no fees for holding the cash ISA or Active Savings.
When it comes to FSCS protection, Hargreaves explained it is at bank level, so for the top rate, it would apply from Charter Savings Bank and allows clients to get increased FSCS protection if they have over £85,000 in their cash ISA.
Last-minute or early-bird ISA cashback deal
Mark Hicks, head of active savings at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “This cashback offer is ideal for those rushing at the last minute to make the most of their ISA allowance this year, and for those early birds in the next tax year that have already filled their allowance. As we continue to expand our cash ISA platform, we have been able to source multiple products from multiple banks at competitive rates. With this cashback offer, the HL cash ISA offers the top rate in the market for anyone looking to deposit between £10,000 and £20,000 into their ISA.
“HL remains the only investment platform to offer a cash ISA platform. It enables our clients to manage their cash ISA portfolio across multiple banks in one easy-to-use, simple account. As we add more banks and products, this will mean savers in the UK no longer have to shop around each ISA season for the best rate.”
Investment platform Hargreaves Lansdown launched Active Savings in 2018 and its cash ISA platform in early February 2024. At the end of February 2024, it had more than 200,000 clients with cash savings totalling more than £9.1bn.
Related: Hargreaves Lansdown named Best Lifetime Investment ISA Provider at the YourMoney.com Awards 2024