HMRC ISA stats out today

HMRC has published some ISA stats today, updating various elements of their tables. You can find them here.

Most of these stats detail age, gender and income ranges of ISA savers for early tax years, rather than provide the numbers and or amounts subscribed to ISA in 2016/17, these numbers are normally out at the end of August.

More women open ISA accounts than men (14/15)

6.391 million ISA accounts were subscribed to by women compared to 5.838 million for men. In total there are 21.575 million ISA holders.

However men have slightly higher average balances at £23,702 compared to £21,141.

Danny Cox, Chartered Financial Planner, Hargreaves Lansdown:

"Women are more ISA tax savvy than men with more holding and subscribing to tax-free ISA accounts. However the men have higher average ISA balances as more of them invest in stocks and shares ISA than cash ISA, reflecting the greater growth potential of the stock markets compared to cash returns. Overall average ISA balances are higher due to the increased ISA subscription from £11,520 to £15,000 in that year which bodes well for the future with the annual ISA allowance now at £20,000."

Note-able revision 2016 (£ bn)

ISA subscriptions revised today (£ bn)

You may remember from August 16’s stats there was a huge leap in the amount invested in stocks and shares ISA between 2014/15 and 15/16 up from £17.9 bn to £21.4 bn.

HMRC have now revised the 2014/15 number from £17.9 bn to £22.288 bn meaning that the total amount invested in stocks and shares ISA actually fell between 2014/15 and 2015/16. The reason behind the revision isn’t given.

2014/15 is now the year to beat as the “record ISA year” with revised total subscriptions of £83.2 billion compared to 2015/16 at £79.8 billion.