Bank accounts

Any payments made into your James Hay product are received into a pooled bank account, held in the name of the trustee (for SIPP products), or in the name of the provider (for ISA, GIA and Wrap products, excluding the Wrap SIPP). Please see your product terms and conditions for confirmation of the trustee/provider.

These accounts hold money for other clients, and your product's cash holdings will be recorded separately in our records but not in the banks’ records. Your cash within the pooled bank account is known as your product bank account, and your balance is visible to you at any time via your James Hay Online account.

We will only use banks which are authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority, regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and Prudential Regulation Authority, and are covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). More details on your financial protection can be found here.

Our approach to cash interest

Customers can hold cash balances on the platform to help pay adviser service fees and charges, or to act as a temporary haven when the markets are volatile. This facility isn’t designed to hold large balances of cash for long periods of time.

Our active management of customer cash means we can credit our customers with a competitive rate of interest on cash in their product banks accounts. We retain some of what’s earned so we can keep our charges low, as well as investing in our technology, propositions and in providing higher service levels. Our aim is to deliver excellent financial outcomes for you, and ultimately help make your retirement more rewarding.

The tables below show how we share the interest generated on cash with you:


Earned interest rate (per tier)% of earned interest rate paid to customers (per tier)
0.00% - 1.00%No interest paid
Above 1.00%50% of interest paid above the 1% retained


Month% interest earned% interest paid
September 20245.61%2.31%
October 20245.52%2.26%
November 20245.39%2.20%
December 20245.33%2.16%
January 20255.31%2.16%
February 20255.29%2.15%


Should there be changes to interest rates the Treasury team will use its market knowledge to negotiate the best rates offered at the time, which may allow you to earn more.

If you’d like to know more about interest earned/previously retained over the last year, feel free to contact us.

Several alternatives are available for those seeking investment-style returns on their spare cash, in some instances by locking into longer-term cash products. These include Bondsmith (our Cash Panel provider, offering a range of term deposits and notice accounts across many banks), NS&I assets, money market funds, lower risk rate model portfolios and/or gilts and bonds purchased through a stockbroker.


Below are some commonly asked questions and answers in relation to the product bank accounts.