ISA

An ISA is an Individual Savings Account, effectively a 'wrapper' in which your savings and investments are exempt from taxation.

There are several different types of ISA available including Cash ISAs, Stocks and Shares ISAs, Innovative Finance ISAs, and Lifetime ISAs.

You can put money into one of each kind of ISA, up to a set aggregate limit (currently £20,000), each tax year. This limit is known as your ‘ISA allowance’. Any returns or gains made from money placed in an ISA are exempt from income and capital gains tax.

Innovative Finance ISAs were introduced by the government in 2016 and allows individuals to use their annual ISA allowance to lend funds through investments such as Loan Based Crowdfunding or Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Lending and Crowdfunded Debt Securities. This means that you can invest in a Tifosy bond through an ISA.

Cash ISAs can include savings in bank and building society accounts and some National Savings and Investments products. Stocks & Shares ISAs can include shares in companies, unit trusts and investment funds, corporate bonds and government bonds. Innovative Finance ISAs can include Peer-to-Peer Loans (loans that you give to other people or businesses without using a bank) and Crowdfunding Debentures (investing in a business by buying its debt). Bonds offered on the Tifosy platform fall into the latter category.

You must be:

• Aged 18 or over
• Resident in the UK
• A Crown servant (for example diplomatic or overseas civil service) or their spouse or civil partner if you don’t live in the UK
• You may not hold an ISA with or on behalf of someone else

The annual ISA allowance may change each tax year. The ISA allowance for 2018-19 tax year is £20,000. You may wish to learn more about your ISA allowance from the government website. https://www.gov.uk/individual-savings-accounts/overview

The tax year runs from 6th April one year to the 5th April the following year. For clarity, for the 2018-19 tax year runs from the 6th April 2018 to the 5th of April 2019.

To setup a Tifosy IFISA account, simply follow the entirely online process at www.tifosy.com/ifisa, all you’ll need are your personal details (including your National Insurance number) to hand.

To set up your Tifosy ISA you will need your personal information including your address and National Insurance number. In order to make a deposit, you will require the details of your preferred payment method. If that is transferring from another ISA account, you would need to have the details of the account to hand.

There is a 14-day cancellation period within which you have the right to cancel your account. If you cancel with the 14 calendar days, you will still be able to open an IFISA with us or another ISA provider. You will also have not used any of your current annual allowance. Once the 14-day cancellation period has passed, this will no longer apply and this would be included within your annual allowance.

When setting up your Tifosy ISA account, you will be required to read through and accept special IFISA Terms and Conditions.

By investing in Tifosy bonds through an ISA, you are able to earn tax-free returns on your investments. You can deposit up to your annual allowance (£20,000) or transfer ISA wrapped funds into your Tifosy ISA and invest tax-free.

Uninvested cash funds in your Tifosy IFISA do not earn interest. However, should you invest those funds in Tofisy bonds, then they will begin to earn interest at the advertised rates.

Like all peer-to-peer lending platforms, we fall outside of the scope of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (“FSCS”), though we are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). This means that, should a peer-to-peer lending platform fail for any reason, those investing (lending) directly via the platform would have no recourse to the FSCS. This is that case whether you invest via an IFISA or not.

You will be able to monitor the progress of your IFISA investments through the "my ISA" section of your Tifosy account profile.