Individual Savings Account Definition
An Individual Savings Account (ISA) is a financial product available in the UK, designed for the purpose of investment and savings with a favourable tax status. ISAs were introduced on 6 April 1999, replacing the earlier Personal Equity Plans (PEPs) and Tax Exempt Special Savings Accounts (TESSAs), which continued to exist only for money already invested in them and for interplan transfers. ISAs were explicitly designed to appeal to a broader range of the population than these earlier products, which were sometimes claimed to be exclusively for the benefit of the middle class. However, they have been criticised as confusing.