eeyore
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Post by eeyore on Jul 30, 2018 11:03:06 GMT
Wouldn't it be simpler to ration it in stages (depending on the loan and it's size of course). For example, this last loan, £500 for 12 hours - by then most smaller bidders would get what they wanted, then another portion for next 12 hours and after that first come first served? I'm definitely not a BH, but if I were then I'm pretty sure that such a change would have to be done carefully if you didn't want to put me off. In particular, I wouldn't want to have to come back to the screen three times - if there were going to be three bid windows then I'd want the opportunity to put my marker down for all of them at once. Conceptually simple, but of course more complex to code and therefore more scope for errors - I think ABL probably want to get their current system working properly (scalably!) first.
The stark problem facing Ablrate after the difficulties with bidding with both 1000108 & 1000109 is how to get any viable system working; after the launch of 1000108 we were promised the system would be fixed but it wasn't (well, not noticeably). What level of trepidation do you think Ablrate will have as they prepare for the next launch? If their system can't be proven to handle large traffic volumes (and it's expensive to implement anyway), a different approach to bidding which eliminates the stampede might be a more appropriate compromise, even if it's short-term. I think the only thing we can be sure of right now is that we won't be seeing the rest of the promised "£2 million of loans percolating which will be hitting the platform within the next week"! Good luck guys!
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blender
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Post by blender on Jul 30, 2018 13:16:27 GMT
Just a minute, there. I'm all set for the percolation and am willing to take my chances with the lottery. Borrowers must be serviced: that's the prime directive.
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Post by ablrate on Jul 30, 2018 14:54:20 GMT
We have spent some time writing code to reproduce the errors experienced by some lenders and we have a better understanding of why they occurred... we are now working on that fix for live, so loans should not be held up.
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Post by flobberchops on Jul 30, 2018 19:53:59 GMT
Or - crazy idea incoming - perhaps new loans could be issued in two concurrent tranches. One tranche with a bid limit in the hundreds to keep the smaller bidders happy, one tranche with no limit for the BHs to go nuts over. Any merit to that?
At any rate, am looking forward to the upcoming loans we've been promised.
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elliotn
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Post by elliotn on Jul 31, 2018 2:19:17 GMT
Or - crazy idea incoming - perhaps new loans could be issued in two concurrent tranches. One tranche with a bid limit in the hundreds to keep the smaller bidders happy, one tranche with no limit for the BHs to go nuts over. Any merit to that?
At any rate, am looking forward to the upcoming loans we've been promised.
Interesting experiment for the SM where BHs have been known to clog up when offloading.
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ceejay
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Post by ceejay on Jul 31, 2018 9:27:45 GMT
Or - crazy idea incoming - perhaps new loans could be issued in two concurrent tranches. One tranche with a bid limit in the hundreds to keep the smaller bidders happy, one tranche with no limit for the BHs to go nuts over. Any merit to that?
At any rate, am looking forward to the upcoming loans we've been promised.
Interesting idea, although it might cause unnecessary complications in the SM afterwards. I wonder if you could simulate the same effect during launch by reserving one chunk of the loan for small bidders, and having the rest unrestricted - but, once this were done, letting it continue as a single loan.
You could combine this with the idea of a loan being a free-for-all after a given period by saying something like "£100,000 of this loan will be reserved for maximum bids of £1000 for the first 24 hours" (adjust numbers to taste!).
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blender
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Post by blender on Jul 31, 2018 10:25:29 GMT
I don't like bid limits, but it may be a better idea to restrict the last 100k, or whatever, rather than the first £100k. Then there is no risk to the loan filling speedily. Say, if the unbid part of the loan is down to £100k within 24 hours, access to that remaining part is restricted to new bidders (accounts) subject to one bid each of a maximum of £1k, for the next 24 hours. (insert other parameters). Such a system would only kick in where it was needed and would not need to be selected, or not, for each loan. It provides flobberchops two loan system within one.
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greenslime
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Post by greenslime on Jul 31, 2018 16:45:44 GMT
I don't like bid limits, but it may be a better idea to restrict the last 100k, or whatever, rather than the first £100k. Then there is no risk to the loan filling speedily. Say, if the unbid part of the loan is down to £100k within 24 hours, access to that remaining part is restricted to new bidders (accounts) subject to one bid each of a maximum of £1k, for the next 24 hours. (insert other parameters). Such a system would only kick in where it was needed and would not need to be selected, or not, for each loan. It provides flobberchops two loan system within one. That seems a most excellent idea. BH can have their feeding frenzy but save some morsels for the small investors.
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archie
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Post by archie on Jul 31, 2018 16:56:15 GMT
I think there has to be some bid limit.
With no limit the coding for concurrent trading would have to be active for the whole of the loan rather than the last 10%. You cannot be sure how much anyone might buy.
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blender
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Post by blender on Jul 31, 2018 17:16:18 GMT
I think there has to be some bid limit. With no limit the coding for concurrent trading would have to be active for the whole of the loan rather than the last 10%. You cannot be sure how much anyone might buy. That is a problem, but in the last loan they tried to bring in the concurrent trading for the last 10%. If they can make that work, then when switching into concurrent trading mode, they can also change who may bid what. The transition does not have to be precisely on a number - just to leave a piece of the carcass to be finished with smaller bites. The smaller bids would not be excluded from the first chunk, nor from multiple bids, but any account which has bid once successfully would be excluded from the end part. That way you do not have to keep a tally of how much has been bid from an account, just which accounts have bid by the time of the transition. (But that in itself is a non-trivial task).
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applets
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Post by applets on Jul 31, 2018 17:26:31 GMT
Alternatively, why don't we let Ablrate run their business as they wish with those lenders who like it continuing to lend and those who don't exercising their right to leave. If, as predicted by many in this thread, large numbers of small lenders leave and loans do not fill then Ablrate may feel the need to reconsider their business model.
Not directly comparable I know, but, as some will be aware, at Unbolted there used to be complaints that many lenders could not lend on smaller loans. The response was the system of random allocations of £5 loan parts referred to earlier in this thread. As the threshold subject to random allocations increased and the number of allocations to individual lenders reduced, so further rationing was introduced with a reduction in interest rates to dampen demand - a suggestion also made earlier for Ablrate. As a result of lower interest rates, a number of lenders said they would stop lending and for a while random allocations appeared to improve for those who remained. However, the threshold and number of random allocations now appear to be back where they started. What is noticeable though is that larger, admittedly unprotected loans are left unfilled for much longer than they were in the past suggesting that perhaps some larger lenders have been frightened away by the desire to improve access for smaller lenders.
Given the suggestions up thread, I mention the Unbolted experience as a caution to those who now seek change to Ablrate's business model.
By all means spend time coming up with alternative ideas for how you feel Ablrate can change their model to enable everyone to get what they want in every loan, but please also allow Ablrate the right to disregard these ideas if they are so minded.
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markyg61
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Post by markyg61 on Jul 31, 2018 18:36:23 GMT
I'm not sure its the business model at fault rather the platform itself. As an example, LandlordInvest release both large and small loans for lenders to choose what they loan against and how much. They seem to cope with demand without a problem. No crashes, no stalls, no hangs. It just works, well.
To me, and its just a personal opinion rather than anything based on fact, it looks like the platform is not capable of handling the concurrent transaction processing. It's either underspecced at a hardware level or inefficient coding of the site itself.
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blender
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Post by blender on Jul 31, 2018 18:51:27 GMT
By all means spend time coming up with alternative ideas for how you feel Ablrate can change their model to enable everyone to get what they want in every loan, but please also allow Ablrate the right to disregard these ideas if they are so minded.
Of course - it's not a co-operative. Ablrate will decide and take responsibility. I don't think anyone has suggested otherwise.
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eeyore
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Post by eeyore on Aug 1, 2018 9:27:07 GMT
If Ablrate need to get a loan out soon, then there doesn't have to be an immediate major overhaul, just adopt the approach suggested earlier in this thread - limit the size of bids and increase the limit in small increments and do it slowly; Ablrate already has the system capability to do that. The key is to build the confidence of the lenders that the loan will not fill rapidly, which will reduce the stampede of the bidding traffic as soon as the loan is opened.
Looking at the documentation for recent loans, it's clear that it takes weeks and months to organise a loan; does it *really* matter if the loan takes 48hours to fill?
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