Economic downturn 'to hit ISAs'

It believes a future downturn could particularly affect stocks and shares accounts. The predicted slump will come after a strong period for ISA sales. Figures from Datamonitor show ISA sales reached £33.3bn in 2006 as customers took out a record 13,788 ISAs during the year. Mini cash ISAs, the most popular, grew by 6.5% since 2002, in terms of annual sales value. The average value of mini cash ISAs reached £2,178 between 2002 and 2006. The data also shows providers sold fewer maxi ISAs in 2006 than 2002 and 99% of maxi ISAs comprised of stocks and shares. Katie Langridge, financial ...