Is Wealthify a good Cash ISA?

Is Wealthify's Cash ISA Any Good?

Rates: You get good interest rates with Wealthify’s Cash ISA, which currently pays 3.61% AER / 3.55% tax-free p.a (variable/paid monthly), which is only a little bit less than the Bank of England base rate of 4%. .

As Wealthify’s Cash ISA interest rate is variable, the amount of money you get monthly will go up and down in line with any rises or falls in the Bank of England’s base rate.

But, the good thing about saving with Wealthify is that if rates go down again, you can switch into investments. One of the things that came up when I interviewed the then Wealthify CEO Andy Russell, back in 2020 was that it’s hard to educate people to invest rather than save, so hopefully, this may be people’s first step into a wider world of investing.

Market Access: Wealthify’s savings accounts are managed by ClearBank (which also powers other cash ISAs including those of Chip,  Allicia Bank & Raisin). But, that’s one of the things I like about Wealthify, it does the hard work for you by picking the bank account you save in, so you don’t have to make too many decisions.

However, there is a downside to Wealthify’s Cash ISA. The £85,000 Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) protection that you usually get with savings accounts applies to all the money you have saved with ClearBank. So, if, for example, you have £150,000 spread across savings accounts powered by ClearBank with Wealthify, Chip, Allica Bank and Raisin and ClearBank goes bust only £85,000 is covered by the FSCS.

If you have a Wealthify Investment ISA, though, you do get the whole £85,000 FSCS cover in case Wealthify goes bust.

ClearBank Limited is authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority (No. 754568). Across all your ClearBank products, up to £85,000 of eligible deposits is protected by the UK Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).

If you want to spread your savings across multiple banks you could consider using a savings platform, like Hargreaves Lansdown Active Savings or AJ Bell Cash Hub.

Wealthify’s Cash ISA is flexible so you can take money out if you need it and put it bank in again without it reducing your allowance, as long as it’s before this year’s ISA allowance deadline. The minimum funding for the ISA is £1.

App & Platform: I’ve always found the Wealthify apps and website really easy to use.

Customer Service: Even though Wealthify’s Cash ISA is an online savings account with no branches and is provided by a third party (ClearBank) you can still phone the nice people who work for Wealthify in Wales if you have any problems.

Research & Analysis: Some good guides on how cash ISAs work and blogs about investing for when (and if) you want to take on more risk for potentially better returns.