What’s next for ISAs?
I reckon ISA sales are a pretty good indicator of the financial health of Middle Britain. They have been remarkably robust over the last nine years since they were introduced and provide an interesting contrast to the tales of woe we hear about our debt habits. Undoubtedly debt is a real problem for many, but we now have around £140bn in cash ISAs which is two and half times the £55bn we owe on our credit cards. Not only that the amount we have in cash ISAs is growing strongly while the level of our credit card debt is the same as it was three years ago. We won’t find out what happened to ISA sales for the April to June quarter of this year for a little while yet. The period from April to June is the biggest three months of the year for ISA sales. Over half of all accounts are typically opened in this quarter and it normally accounts for 40% of the total amount we save over the year as a whole. However, this is the period where arguably the credit crunch really hit the wider economy, s
