CAT Standards
In April 1999, the Government introduced a voluntary CAT standard for ISAs (standing for "Charges, Access, and Terms") to make them easier for inexperienced customers to understand and with the proposed intention that lower costs would attract more investors. It does not guarantee the investment performance or that investors would buy or be sold the right type of investment. Many products comply with the CAT standard and there is some controversy as to whether or not the CAT standard alone would reach out to many more people who would not have otherwise chosen to save.
Many equity funds also meet the CAT standards, but the restriction on costs generally means that these funds are index funds, which require little management and simply follow a given index, such as the FTSE 100 Index.
CAT standards were discontinued by the Treasury on 6 April 2005 following the introduction of the stakeholder product suite, although existing CAT standard ISAs continued on the same terms and conditions.
Read more about this topic: Individual Savings Account
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