Does anyone know who does the best cash ISA?

NS&I, 5.8%.

Unless you wish to transfer in your existing ISA, in which case its Kent BS with 5.71%

cheers guys, gone with NSandI

what about the alliance & lesicester ISA?

8.1% p.a AER

http://www.alliance-leicester.co.uk/home/index.asp

You need to put £500 pcm in their appalling current account. It may still be worth shifting money monthly to do it if you can invest the full £3000 in the ISA from the start.

Presonally I've transferred previous years' ISAs to Kent and will open a Barclays ISA in April.

How easy is it to transfer a previous year's cash ISA
I have 2 years languishing at around 4.75% in the Portman at the moment.

I'd go for National Savings - they pay x% above the base rate for a while after all the others dump you in a 4.5% account

This Barclays Tax Beater Cash ISA is 6.50% AER
http://www.personal.barclays.co.uk/BRC1/js...lf&site=pfs

That one drops you back to 5.5% after a year I believe. Worth considering that if you are investing for the long-term, the initial 0.7% premium over say the NS&I is lost 3 years after it drops back.

I checked the NS&I site and their cash ISA appears to be just 4.85% AER

http://www.nsandi.com/products/isa/index.jsp

That's their rubbish ISA. You want this one:
http://www.nsandi.com/products/disa/index.jsp

Oh right, hadn't noticed that one...

As the Barclays ISA is 6.50% AER for the first year and then drops to 5.50% AER does this mean if I opened the Barclays ISA right now then I would only obtain the 6.50% for the next couple of weeks until the end of this tax year.

Dunno, you want to read the fine print. Personally I can't be bothered rate chasing - particularly as the NS&I Direct ISA don't allow you to transfer in cash ISAs from other companies.

Didn't know that

whats appalling about the A&L current account? I was thinking of maybe switching to this..might hold off for a bit!

Interest rates of 1.49% on blances below £2500 and 0.1% above £2500. 0870 telephone number to call them (they have on occasion refused to serve me when I use the geographic number).

High (probably illegal) fees as below (luckily I've yet to incur any):

Monthly unauthorised overdraft fees

Day 1 £25 charge
Day 2 No charge
Day 3 No charge
Day 4 No charge
Day 5 £25 charge

Paid item charge £25 per item

Failed transaction due to insufficient funds £34 per item

Administration fee for fixed term overdraft £25

They pay the interest from my higher rate products into this current account where it earns a pittance.

They (like most banks) are very good at releasing very similarly named lesser performing accounts with and at dropping interest rates. In fact some of the accounts have identical names - all that differs is the starting digits of the account number.

On the plus side the internet banking is pretty good (apart from the logout button which actually leaves you logged in unless you spot the second logout button you have to click).

Needless to say I'm currently in the process of transferring my accounts, including ISAs and cash savings, away from them. You can get good rates but they are barely worth the hassle.

They haven't committed to their rate for 07/08 yet, but I can't imagine it won't be the 5.5%+1% offer.

If a person does not currently hold a cash ISA can they open a cash ISA now (before the new tax year begins) and then open another cash ISA next month after the new tax year has begun?

Yes.

And if they currently hold a cash Isa they can transfer it now and open a different one in the next tax year.

Where is it transferred to...?

The max which can be placed in a cash ISA is £3000 in a tax year, can a *married couple* therefore each individually open a cash ISA and each place £3000 in their own individual cash ISA in the same tax year?

YES YES YES , if you both hav't got one now , open one EACH before April 6th and put the 3k each in it or as much as you can , then on or after April 6th { good friday this year } top them both up with another 3k EACH or build them up to 3k each throughout the year if you don't have the money now .
Do a search on ISA's read the rules there very easy to understand .

I always thought you were only allowed to open one cash ISA (and have it running with a balance)

Nah, you can have as many old ISAs as you like. The only requirement is that you only add money to one cash ISA in any tax year.

Of course it makes more sense to have them all in one account for interest compounding reasons, but there's no requirement to.

One thing that confuses me though and never seems to be discussed or written about is what you can actually do with old previous years' ISAs. Can you combine them all into one pot with another ISA provider? I mean for example if you have £3000 in NS&I for 2003-04, £3000 with HSBC for 2004-05 and £3000 with NS&I for 2005-06 can you say hey HSBC I'd like to combine these previous ISAs into one £9000 chunk?

I've never done it as I've always kept them pretty up to date with the best rates, but I see no reason why not (just ask for multiple transfer forms).

Although, I'm sure you all have done it, another resaonably er 'good' thing to do is to transfer any old TOISA's you have lying around in to an ISA.

I didn't realise that in last year's budget this had been put forward. I was getting a crap rate unitl we found out. Doh!

As for the Best Cash Isa, the wife and I hold ours with Kent and have done for the past three years.

Have found they (so far), have given a consistently good rate over this period. (25% top quartile, I'd say.)