The number of savers maximising funding of their Cash ISAs in the 2022/23 tax year was the highest in the previous five tax years at 1.46m.
The number of maxed-out Cash ISAs utilising the £20,000 annual allowance was more than double the 661,000 in the 2021/22 tax year, according to figures obtained through a Freedom of Information request by Glasgow-based Financial Planner Murphy Wealth.
In contrast, the number of savers maximising their £20,000 ISA allowances in Stocks & Shares ISAs fell from 994,000 in 2021/22 to 840,000 during the same tax year (2022/23).
Combined, close to 2.5 million Britons were able to maximise their £20,0000 allowance in 2022/23, the highest of the past five years.
There were 12.4m ISA accounts in the 2022/23 tax year, which means that around 20% of ISA accounts were maximised.
Number of maximised ISA accounts (thousands)
|
|
2018/19 |
2019/2020 |
2020/21 |
2021/22 |
2022/23 |
|
Cash |
1,097 |
950 |
691 |
661 |
1,460 |
|
Stocks & Shares |
647 |
747 |
802 |
994 |
840 |
|
Across Both |
164 |
134 |
144 |
117 |
185 |
|
Total |
1,908 |
1,831 |
1,637 |
1,772 |
2,485 |
Source Murphy Wealth / HMRC
Recent figures from HMRC for the 2023/24 tax year revealed that £69.5bn was subscribed to Cash ISAs, up on the £41.63bn saved the year before, and more than double the £31.07bn put in Stocks & Shares ISA accounts. This suggests that the trend has continued since.
The report comes ahead of upcoming changes which, from April 2027, will limit the amount of cash individuals can contribute to an ISA each year to £12,000 with some exemptions for older savers. The overall ISA limit will remain at the current £20,000 in a bid to encourage more people to invest more of their savings, rather than just hold cash.
Adrian Murphy, chief executive of Murphy Wealth, said: “While the change to the Cash ISA limit was only announced in the 2025 Budget, there had been rumours going around for some time. There were likely three factors behind the surge in the number of accounts being filled with cash: 2022 was a bad year for stock markets, interest rates rose significantly, and savers wanted to maximise what they could of the cash allowance while it was still available.”
According to analysis from Murphy Wealth, maximising the new annual ISA allowances of £12,000 for cash and £8,000 for stocks and shares could mean savers would be £300,000 better off over 25 years compared to saving purely in cash. This assumes a 10.82% return from stocks and shares (the annual average since 1988 for the MSCI All Country World Index) and 4.3% on cash (the current highest cash ISA rate).