How do I buy, manage or transfer a workplace ISA?
Updated 12 September 2024
Through your online service you can buy a stocks and shares ISA. An ISA gives you a flexible, tax friendly way to save, and could put you firmly in control of your retirement planning.
The Aegon Stocks and Shares ISA gives you:
- Access to a wide range of investments to choose from.
- The same service charge as your workplace pension. So, if you have a discounted service charge for your pension set up through your employer, we'll apply this same price to your Aegon ISA. Depending on the funds you choose to invest in, there may be additional charges that we'll add.
The value of a stocks and shares ISA can fall as well as rise, it’s not guaranteed, and you may get back less than you invest.
Although the investment has no fixed term, you should be prepared to hold the investment for at least five years, ideally longer.
If you don't have a financial adviser, you can visit MoneyHelper to find the right one for you.
The annual ISA allowance for the current tax year is £20,000. You can use your whole ISA allowance for your stocks and shares ISA with us, or you can split it across different types of ISA and ISA providers, ensuring you don't exceed the total annual ISA allowance. We don't currently offer lifetime, cash, or innovative finance ISAs.
What is a flexible ISA?
As your ISA is a flexible ISA, you can also replace any eligible ISA withdrawals in the same tax year without reducing your current year's allowance.
Example: Your allowance is £20,000 and you put £10,000 into an ISA during the tax year. You then make an eligible ISA withdrawal of £3,000. The amount you can now put in during the same tax year is £13,000 because the ISA is flexible (the remaining allowance of £10,000 plus the £3,000 you took out).
What counts as an eligible ISA withdrawal and when can I replace withdrawn funds?
As your ISA is a flexible ISA, this means that money withdrawn from your ISA and paid to you can be replaced within the same tax year, without the replacement counting towards your annual ISA allowance. This includes money paid to you as consolidated natural income (where you've asked us to pay out income generated by your investments to your nominated bank account on a monthly basis in accordance with the terms and conditions).
You can't replace any money removed from the ISA but not paid to you (for example, to pay fees or charges) or anything not paid out as cash (for example, by re-registration of shares). You also can't replace money if your product is closed.
You can withdraw money contributed and income earned in the current tax year and previous tax years, but it must be replaced in the same tax year as the withdrawal.
Buying and managing your Aegon Stocks and Shares ISA
The following questions aren't here to give advice. They explain how to buy and manage your ISA. If you're unsure, we recommend you speak to a financial adviser. If you don't have a financial adviser, you can visit MoneyHelper to find the right one for you.
You can purchase the Aegon Stocks and Shares ISA through the Retiready online service. This can be accessed either through the Shop section of the site, or by selecting the Aegon Stocks and Shares ISA tile whilst in your Savings dashboard.
To buy an Aegon Stocks and Shares ISA yourself you’ll need to be in gate two or above. If you’re not in gate two or above, the first thing you’ll need to do is change your gate. This is presented to you as the first action as part of the purchase and our Guide to Gating can help with that.
Once you’ve made sure you’re in an appropriate gate, you’ll move on to choosing how you want to fund your Aegon Stocks and Shares ISA. You can:
- Transfer in an ISA from another provider
- Make a one-off payment by bank transfer
- Set up regular payments by direct debit, or if your employer allows, via payroll contribution
Or any combination of the above.
Then you’ll need to choose your funds. The Aegon Stocks and Shares ISA has a selection of over 5,000 investment funds (as at December 2023) available and our fund research tool is there to help you pick investment funds that are right for you. Additionally, for those who are in gate three there is the option to purchase equities. Equity trading takes place through our ARC platform, so if you want to do so you’ll need to set up access to ARC.
Finally, we’ll clearly highlight to you what you’ve selected, give you all the information you need, and ask you to agree to the declaration. Your Aegon Stocks and Shares ISA will then be available to access in your online service.
What’s gating?
Investing in ARC can be as complex or as simple as you choose. We’ve split ARC’s wide range of savings and investments into four different levels, or gates, with each gate offering progressively more choice. To put you in control you can choose which gate you want to be in. You’ll be able to move to another gate through your
self-service online account. Before choosing to open a new gate, you’ll be able to see which additional investments and product wrappers you’ll be able to access - you’ll need to accept a declaration before actively choosing to move.
You can transfer in an existing ISA you hold elsewhere.
You can do this through Retiready and you can find out how to transfer an existing ISA to us here.
You can pay more money in (top up), either as:
- A single (one-off) payment.
- Increasing your regular payments.
- If you have ISA savings elsewhere, you might want to consider moving these savings into your new ISA. See the section above How do I transfer an ISA I already have into my existing Aegon ISA? for more information on how to do this.
All of the options you need to manage your ISA are accessed by selecting the ISA within your Savings dashboard. You can make a single payment, amend regular payments, transfer, switch funds, or make a withdrawal - this can all be done through the Retiready online service.
You can choose to use your whole ISA allowance for your Aegon Stocks and Shares ISA or you can split your ISA allowance across different types of ISA and providers in accordance with the regulations. You mustn't contribute more than £20,000 across any permitted combination of ISAs in the same tax year and it's your responsibility to make sure that you don't exceed the annual ISA allowance. We don't currently offer lifetime, cash or innovative finance ISAs.
If you want to carry out any equity trading, you'll need to log in to Aegon Retirement Choices to complete any requests. If you don't have access, you can contact us and we'll send you an activation email to get you set up.
If you’re a TargetPlan customer, you should manage your details through your TargetPlan online service. These details will then be passed through to be updated on your ISA.
If you’re a Workplace ARC customer, who manages your pension through the Retiready online service, then you can update your details through your profile.
For more information on how to use ARC, please read Your guide to Aegon Retirement Choices.
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