Q: Will transferring an ISA affect my annual allowance?

ISA transfers do not affect your annual ISA allowance as your funds remain in the ISA wrapper throughout the process. For this reason, it's important not to withdraw the proceeds as cash or move them to a non-ISA account. Doing so would mean that any subsequent deposits into your Lightyear ISA would count against your ISA allowance for the current tax year.

Question 1

Will transferring an ISA affect my annual allowance?

Accepted Answer

ISA transfers do not affect your annual ISA allowance as your funds remain in the ISA wrapper throughout the process. For this reason, it's important not to withdraw the proceeds as cash or move them to a non-ISA account. Doing so would mean that any subsequent deposits into your Lightyear ISA would count against your ISA allowance for the current tax year.

Question 2

Do you offer partial ISA transfers?

Accepted Answer

Your transfer request will be set up as a full transfer. Lightyear doesn&#x27;t let you choose specific investments to transfer from another broker, but you will be given the option of how to proceed for any investments Lightyear does not support. We&#x27;ll ask you whether you’d like to transfer the value of unsupported investments as cash or if you&#x27;d prefer to leave them where they are. There is a minimum value of £500 on cash transfers and £1000 on in-specie transfers in.

Question 3

Will I have access to my funds during a transfer?

Accepted Answer

It depends what sort of transfer you're doing, and on what actions your old broker allows during transfers.

Cash ISA transfer: Your funds may be inaccessible for a short period while the funds are moving from your old broker to Lightyear. This part of the process typically takes just a few days, but could be over a week.
Stocks and Shares ISA transfer: If you're transferring investments in-specie (i.e. without selling them), you usually won’t be able to trade until we receive the assets from your old broker. If you opt to transfer your assets as cash (e.g. if your current assets aren't supported on Lightyear), your old broker will sell your assets for you before executing the transfer. During the period where they're 'in flight' from your old broker, you may miss market movements while your money is out of the market.

Question 4

Is Lightyear a bank?

Accepted Answer

Lightyear is not a bank. We’re an investment platform, so there are a couple of key differences. While we’re regulated by the same authorities as banks, the protection schemes are slightly different for investment platforms (see here). With regards to customer funds, we cannot use customer money in the same way a bank does by lending it out. You have instant access to your Lightyear assets because of this.

Question 5

How easy is it to withdraw my money?

Accepted Answer

Easy. We ensure you always have access to your money and we've made the process pretty painless for when you need to withdraw. Once requested, withdrawals may take up to 2 business days to be sent out to your requested bank account. Once sent out, the transfer time depends on the payout method:

For GBP, your funds should typically arrive within 0-2 business hours.
For EUR, your funds should arrive within 0-2 business days.
For USD, your funds will arrive after 3-5 business days. As it's a SWIFT payment it may take longer, so contact your receiving bank for an estimation.

Question 6

Do I need financial advice?

Accepted Answer

Lightyear doesn't offer investment advice; i.e. we don't assess if our services or instruments are suitable for you. But we do provide info about what we offer – e.g. our Target Market Matrix which describes investor types based on their investment experience, financial objectives and how much risk they're comfortable with – to help you decide what investments might work best for you. You'll need to make sure your investment decisions meet your needs and amount of investment risk you're happy to take. If you don't feel you have the necessary knowledge and experience to make those decisions for yourself, you may want to get independent financial advice instead.

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