ISA Savings, Mini or Maxi?
In the world of ISA investment you have two basic options, cash ISAs or stocks and shares ISAs, previously these were divided up into two different types of ISAs called Mini and Maxi ISAs.
A Mini ISA savings account allowed you to invest only cash, or stocks and shares. At the time of writing the ISA savings regulations limit your ISA investment to £7,200 in a single year. You can, if you chose, divide this between two “mini ISA” accounts, one account a cash ISA, the other for stocks and shares. You may only deposit up to £3,600 in cash into your cash ISA savings account, and up to £3,600 worth of stocks and shares in the other account.
On the other hand, you may chose to open a maxi ISA, which is a combination account of both cash and stocks and shares ISA savings, with an annual deposit limit of £7,200. Your cash deposit limit is still capped at £3,600 per year, but your stocks and shares limit is not, so you could split your ISA investment 50/50 between the two, or save (for example) £2,000 in cash, and the remaining investment in stocks and shares.
So that explains, briefly, the difference between putting your money into mini ISA savings as opposed to maxi ISAs. Perhaps maxi ISA accounts could be better thought of as combi ISAs, as they allow you to combine both stocks and shares and cash savings in one, high interest, tax free account.