alibaba
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Post by alibaba on Feb 11, 2020 12:00:22 GMT
Just read the p2p financial news latest email, Somo made £1.36 million profit in 2018 and held £2.7 million in cash. Whilst this is good news and I am pleased with my investment in Thebridgecroud, it can be a little confusing dealing with the three names. Thebridgecroud / Social Money and now Somo. is it their intention to rebrand the online site name to Somo? ( have to admit I am easily confused )
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p2pfan
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Post by p2pfan on Feb 11, 2020 21:13:44 GMT
I agree, it's terrific to see them making an increased annual profit and gives reassurance to lenders of their stability (hopefully).
Yes, they will rebrand at some point as Somo. They rightfully deem BridgeCrowd as being too generic, with too many copycat set-ups having either "Bridge" or "Crowd" in their names.
Somo sent out emails to lenders at the start of this year re: the rebranding. You may wish to check your email settings.
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tomp
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Post by tomp on Feb 11, 2020 21:30:51 GMT
Have I missed an email? Any chance you could PM me the contents?
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p2pfan
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Post by p2pfan on Feb 11, 2020 21:40:27 GMT
They weren't newsletters as such, with any content. Just emails with teaser graphics about the evolution from TheBridgeCrowd to Somo.
Also BC have been using the Somo branding at exhibitions of late.
The new look and feel looks impressive and will hopefully help give Somo the recognition it deserves for being a top-tier P2P provider. Unlike most others I've come across, they express a genuine passion to chase up borrowers and pay back lenders on time.
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michaelc
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Post by michaelc on Feb 12, 2020 18:15:13 GMT
They weren't newsletters as such, with any content. Just emails with teaser graphics about the evolution from TheBridgeCrowd to Somo. Also BC have been using the Somo branding at exhibitions of late. The new look and feel looks impressive and will hopefully help give Somo the recognition it deserves for being a top-tier P2P provider. Unlike most others I've come across, they express a genuine passion to chase up borrowers and pay back lenders on time. I think you're right but I wonder what incentivises them to do it when so many other platforms have demonstrably not done so?
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aj
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Post by aj on Feb 13, 2020 9:52:08 GMT
I think you're right but I wonder what incentivises them to do it when so many other platforms have demonstrably not done so? In the past, they put their own money into every loan. This for me is the best incentive to align platform interests with lenders. By more recent communications, I am no longer sure this is the case?? With this in mind, alongside the drop in interest rates, I am slightly reducing my BC exposure at the moment.
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pom
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Post by pom on Feb 13, 2020 9:58:32 GMT
They weren't newsletters as such, with any content. Just emails with teaser graphics about the evolution from TheBridgeCrowd to Somo. Also BC have been using the Somo branding at exhibitions of late. The new look and feel looks impressive and will hopefully help give Somo the recognition it deserves for being a top-tier P2P provider. Unlike most others I've come across, they express a genuine passion to chase up borrowers and pay back lenders on time. I think you're right but I wonder what incentivises them to do it when so many other platforms have demonstrably not done so? Well for one thing the family's money is invested as well.....but I think it's more that they have a LOT of experience in recoveries predating p2p so already knew what they were doing before a lot of platforms even started offering property loans. Whereas many other platforms in this part of the market had recovery plans that at best were rather theoretical...and I suspect at least one decided to not worry about it until it happened.
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michaelc
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Post by michaelc on Feb 13, 2020 12:12:29 GMT
Thanks for the interesting replies. To me them investing would be the strongest factor because even with experience it presumably still costs a significant amount to recover loans - even more so if they are someone else's loan.
I will point out despite my ongoing questioning I have seen at first hand several loans well recovered by BC and many more loans that I'm not in.
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lobster
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Post by lobster on Feb 13, 2020 15:22:49 GMT
Having a 5k minimum, and therefore presumably a smaller number of clients, must surely reduce their admin costs which will obviously help profits along. Fewer emails, phones calls and correspondence to deal with. Also I think that on average those investing larger sums in P2P have more experience and a better grasp of the product - again leading to fewer enquiries and admin. OK - that may be debatable .
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lobster
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Post by lobster on Feb 13, 2020 15:25:18 GMT
I think you're right but I wonder what incentivises them to do it when so many other platforms have demonstrably not done so? In the past, they put their own money into every loan. This for me is the best incentive to align platform interests with lenders. By more recent communications, I am no longer sure this is the case??So what makes you doubt that BC still have "skin in the game" ?
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iRobot
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Post by iRobot on Feb 13, 2020 17:36:31 GMT
In the past, they put their own money into every loan. This for me is the best incentive to align platform interests with lenders. By more recent communications, I am no longer sure this is the case??So what makes you doubt that BC still have "skin in the game" ? Not an answer, but an observation... On the stats page, and as of July 2018, it states: "Percentage of the loans invested by family funds 93%" I'd hope that thebridgecrowd would be in a position to update their stats up to at least until July 2019 and, preferably, the whole of that year. In which case, it would be interesting to see whether that figure changes significantly. (I'm also interested in the "Average annualised interest earned by investors" figure which I can only imagine has decreased, but interesting to what extent)
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ilmoro
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Post by ilmoro on Feb 13, 2020 23:50:58 GMT
Perhaps not being a 'p2p' platform & offering unregulated loans helps in keeping costs down. Don't have to worry about loss relief on tax statements as not eligible. Whatever it is seems to work.
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IFISAcava
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Post by IFISAcava on Feb 14, 2020 10:29:27 GMT
Perhaps not being a 'p2p' platform & offering unregulated loans helps in keeping costs down. Don't have to worry about loss relief on tax statements as not eligible. Whatever it is seems to work. Not eligible against other P2P interest, if one applies the rules diligently, but eligible against capital gains surely?
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tomp
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Post by tomp on Feb 14, 2020 10:39:28 GMT
Interesting point. What kind of tax do you pay on interest received from BC? Do you classify it as p2p or some other income? Just to clarify are you saying that loses from other platforms could not be used against interest received from BC?
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aj
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Post by aj on Feb 14, 2020 10:57:57 GMT
So what makes you doubt that BC still have "skin in the game" ? In Bridgecrowds "Newsletter from the Managing Director" emailed out on 5/7/19 they stated: "(iv) We will only offer loans that we have invested in or we would be happy to invest in.This shows commitment to our deals. We have skin in the game.** **subject to our own capital requirements" I read that as saying they are not in every loan any more; and hypothesise that their exposure to each loan is now a smaller amount*. Without detailed statistics from BC my soothsaying and gut instinct is all that I have to go on so I may be entirely wrong on this! The "Percentage of the loans invested by family funds 93%" statistic seems a little vague, i'm not quite sure how it should be read? *As their platform grows, a smaller BC slice of each pie seems inevitable to me.
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