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Post by gusgorilla on Apr 2, 2016 1:53:01 GMT
jevgenijs I would like to convert my Euros account to a GBP account and increase my investment. Could you please advise what would happen to all my current loans, if I would be charged and how to go about the conversion. Would the conversion of my current loans be done at the current real exchange rate? Would current loans be kept in Euros or converted? This seems like a very brave move for TWINO but I think there is definitely a gap for you in the UK market. I don't think anybody else offers the kind of loans that you do here. Keep the interest rate at 12% (or higher) and I think you will do OK. Good luck.
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rozentas
Suck it and see
Posts: 21
Likes: 10
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Post by rozentas on Apr 2, 2016 17:17:24 GMT
I sent the email to Twino asking to convert my account to GBP and received an email back saying this facility is not yet available and they will keep me posted. Seems a bit silly for Twino MD to state you can make the change to GBP before the facility is actually available. Has anyone else been successful in making the change.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 2, 2016 20:38:40 GMT
jevgenijs I would like to convert my Euros account to a GBP account and increase my investment. Could you please advise what would happen to all my current loans, if I would be charged and how to go about the conversion. Would the conversion of my current loans be done at the current real exchange rate? Would current loans be kept in Euros or converted? This seems like a very brave move for TWINO but I think there is definitely a gap for you in the UK market. I don't think anybody else offers the kind of loans that you do here. Keep the interest rate at 12% (or higher) and I think you will do OK. Good luck. I had a good conversation with Twino about it. Theyll be converting using exchange rate as stated by ECB they can be found here : www.ecb.europa.eu/stats/exchange/eurofxref/html/eurofxref-graph-gbp.en.htmlone email account can have only EUR or GBP loans you'll automatically see all loans in GBP/EUR when you login (based on currency in which account is supposed to be)
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james
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Post by james on Apr 3, 2016 18:08:30 GMT
Where is this money 'earning interest'? By which I mean, if it's all in gbp, does this count as foreign earnings for a uk tax return? It is earning interest in the country where the borrower is located. Not where you are located and not where the platform is located. Maybe this is not true for all TWINO loans because in some cases an end borrower might be paying a financial institution and that financial institution might be borrowing from you to fund their own landing. In that case it would be the location where the financial institution is paying from that is the correct one. So for your tax return you would want a report of the interest in each borrower country converted to GBP at the date of each interest payment. Lending in GBP removes the exchange rate part but you still need to do the country split. You only need to report each individual country if your total amount of foreign interest in all countries is more than £2,000 in one tax year. This answer is based on discussion on the phone with someone from HMRC's foreign payments group couple of years ago. For my Bondora interest payments I have been using the same source as TWINO is using, the ECB page. You will need to complete a tax return because if you have even a penny of foreign income it is mandatory. I did it first with about £60 of foreign interest. There's an online form you can complete to tell HMRC that you need to be in the self-assessment system to file a tax return. Foreign interest isn't one of the reasons listed, use the other choice and explain in the text box. It took about six weeks for HMRC to start to send me the things I needed to do the tax return. It is good to see TWINO mentioning this here because I am not currently a TWINO customer so emails about it would not reach me.
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james
Posts: 2,205
Likes: 955
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Post by james on Apr 3, 2016 18:27:04 GMT
I think that what TWINO has announced might not comply with HMRC rules.
The amount of interest paid is the amount paid to you by the borrower in whatever currency they are using. If they aren't paying GBP then you need to convert from whatever they are paying to GBP. I assume that TWINO does not make borrowers have part of their loan monthly payments made in GBP and part in EUR. Instead I assume that the borrower normally pays in their own local currency.
Yet I think that this might comply with HMRC rules as well. Even though the payments are not in GBP what TWINO is doing in effect is providing a hedged consistent exchange rate for all of the loan payments. And when I discussed the exchange rate issue with someone from HMRC's foreign team what they said is that I could pick any reasonable exchange rate I wanted as long as I was consistent.
What TWINO is doing does seem to meet this test: it's just a hedged exchange rate.
So on balance I do think that what they are doing meets HMRC's requirements for exchange rates being used.
This does still leave the need to report for each country the amounts received, not just one combined total for all countries.
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Post by gusgorilla on Apr 4, 2016 8:09:29 GMT
Given the deep cuts to HMRC staffing levels recently I would hope they would not be engaging in nit picking over this and would be surprised if they did.
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james
Posts: 2,205
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Post by james on Apr 4, 2016 10:43:20 GMT
Agreed. And if they did get curious, if I was using TWINO, I'd be quite likely to be one of those selected because I'm doing unusual things like wiping out most of my income tax liability with VCT purchases. Unusual always excites investigators...
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Post by gusgorilla on Apr 4, 2016 22:09:38 GMT
Agreed. And if they did get curious, if I was using TWINO, I'd be quite likely to be one of those selected because I'm doing unusual things like wiping out most of my income tax liability with VCT purchases. Unusual always excites investigators... Didn't realise HMRC packed with insatiably intellectually curious types!
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Post by Deleted on Apr 8, 2016 15:47:04 GMT
From Twino :
These are the details of the conversion:
1. As the result of your TWINO account conversion, all transactions, investments and respective investment agreements will be recalculated to GBP;
2. The recalculation to GBP will be made based on the European Central Bank exchange rate at the date of the transaction (i.e. if you invested in a loan on March 1, 2016, we will use the exchange rate of March 1, 2016 to recalculate the value of this investment).
3. Once all transactions are recalculated, we will debit your TWINO account with the difference (if any) between a) your Account Value (current value of your investments + Cash balance) converted to GBP at the exchange rate as of April 12, 2016 and b) the resulting Account Value (current value of your Investments + Available cash) converted to GBP at the past exchange rates, as per the steps #1 and #2.
Here is an example:
1. Let’s say you deposited EUR 1,000 on March 1, 2016 and immediately invested it in loans. Your current Account value (EUR 1,000 in investment and EUR 0 in cash balance) will be converted based on the exchange rate as of March 1, 2016 (as both the deposit and investment occurred on March 1, 2016); and thus, would equal to GBP 778 (exchange rate of 0.778 GBP/EUR).
2. Let’s assume that the exchange rate on April 12, 2016 will be 0.800 GBP/EUR. Thus, your Account Value converted to GBP as per the assumed exchange rate on April 12, 2016 will equal to GBP 800, in which case we will debit your account with GBP 22.
3. After the conversion your Account Value of GBP 800 will consist of GBP 778 in Investments (as per calculation in step #1 above) and GBP 22 in Available cash (as per calculation in step #2 above).
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Post by Deleted on Apr 12, 2016 10:48:15 GMT
If anyone converted holding from EUR to GBP, could they please comment on it? As in how the experience was?
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rozentas
Suck it and see
Posts: 21
Likes: 10
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Post by rozentas on Apr 12, 2016 18:26:29 GMT
Hi, I converted today, the process was swift and well handled. I had to confirm I wanted the change by responding to an email which said my account would be converted on the 12th April. Then I had to confirm after the change had been made that I was happy with it, which I did and now my account shows GBP.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 12, 2016 19:06:45 GMT
Were you satisfied with the exchange rate they used?
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rozentas
Suck it and see
Posts: 21
Likes: 10
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Post by rozentas on Apr 13, 2016 16:36:34 GMT
Yes, it was the one they said they would use
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Post by stanley on Apr 14, 2016 16:21:54 GMT
In connection with this:
Having set up my Twino account (yay, GBP investing! Or so I thought) I quickly discover that Santander will charge me 25GBP for the pleasure of moving my money out of the UK, regardless of amount.
Hah, Transferwise! In your face fat cats! I thought...... However, Transferwise won't allow the sending and receiving currency to be the same.
Pooh!
I've emailed Twino to see if they have any ideas.
Do you?
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Post by wiseclerk on Apr 14, 2016 20:21:08 GMT
Not sure if it fits in this special situation: Currencyfair? You could pay in £ and payout the £ to a different account. Check if it works in this situation. Will cost you fee of £2.50
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