Don't miss the new market-leading savings account!

If you want to get the best tax-free return on your savings, you've got a new market-leading account to consider.

It may not be traditional ISA season, but recent weeks have seen a glut of shiny new tax-free savings accounts launched.

ISAs are shockingly under-utilised by many savers. A study by Halifax this month found that just one in three of us have an ISA, and those that do are not generally taking advantage of the full allowance.

However, for those that are smart enough to make money on their savings without handing a penny over to the taxman, there are some new accounts worth looking at – including a new market leader!

Average ISAs

Both Northern Rock and Leeds Building Society trumpeted new cash ISAs last week, but in truth they are just a bit... well, bland.

Northern Rock improved the rate on offer from its variable rate cash ISA to 2.5%, far from the worst around but not exactly a rate to get the heart beating any quicker.

However, it still looks a better bet than the new two-year ISA from Leeds Building Society, which tracks bank base rate plus 1.80%, giving it a current rate of 2.3%. This could end up an astute account if base rate starts to move northwards quicker than expected. However, given you can get a fixed two-year ISA at 3.3% at the moment, base rate would have to move upwards at a pretty sharp rate for this to be any better. It doesn’t really do it for me to tell the truth.

The Spanish option

Neither of those accounts is anywhere near as good as the new ISA from Santander.

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The Spanish banking giant has launched the Flexible ISA issue 3, a tremendous account paying 2.85%, tax-free. The account is variable, and tracks bank base rate plus 2.35% for 12 months. So should base rate climb ahead of schedule over the next year, you’ll be laughing as your rate will go up too!

What’s more, the account is guaranteed to never drop below the initial rate of 2.85% within that year, while you also enjoy penalty free access to your cash. Even better it can be opened with just £1.

Sadly, and this is a pretty big black mark against the account for seasoned ISA savers, the account does not allow transfers in.

Saving with your bank

The Flexible ISA from Santander has taken top spot in the best buy one-year ISA tables, moving ahead of the Cash ISA Direct from Halifax, another variable ISA this time tracking base rate plus 2.3%, so offering a current savings rate of 2.8%.

However, with both Santander and Halifax, you qualify for even better ISAs if you happen to bank with them anyway.

With the Halifax Cash ISA Direct, that rate of interest jumps up to 3% if you happen to hold a Halifax current account. Given the absolute brilliance of the Halifax Reward current account, which pays you £5 each and every month irrespective of your finishing balance so long as you pay in £1,000, that’s a hell of a deal.

What’s more, with Santander if you hold a current account, mortgage or investment you can also get 3% tax-free on your savings as you can take advantage of the Loyalty Flexible ISA. Considering the current accounts on offer from Santander, including the Preferred In-Credit Rate account which pays 5% (and comes with £100 cashback!) and the Preferred Overdraft account, which offers an interest-free overdraft for 12 months, it might be worth taking advantage.

Both ISAs track bank base rate plus 2.5% for 12 months, though while the Halifax account accepts transfers in, the Santander account does not.

The trouble with transfers

As you will have gathered by now, ISAs may not always be as good as they appear to be for those savers sensible enough to already have funds stored up in ISAs over the years, as they may not accept transfers.

Of course, finding a decent ISA that accepts transfers in from other ISA accounts is only the start – you also have to deal with the ISA transfer process, where you have to rely on the ISA providers themselves to move your money from your old account to your new account.

Sadly, they tend to drag their heels to a ridiculous level, often resulting in you losing out on valuable interest on your cash through no fault of your own.

It’s got so bad that Consumer Finance filed a super-complaint (much better than an ordinary one) earlier this year, which resulted in the Office of Fair Trading issuing new guidelines on reducing the time taken for transfers to take place from the current average of 23 working days to 15.

However, as Jane Baker explains in More great news about your ISA, Halifax has launched an ISA promise to start paying interest from the day it receives your application. Hopefully other banks will now follow suit. In the meantime, I’ve put together a round up of the best cash ISAs in the market today.

10 tremendous ISAs

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