arbster
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Post by arbster on Nov 23, 2017 16:19:02 GMT
Fortune favours the brave. A fool and his money is soon parted. Take your pick. what about a brave fool? Typically they make a lot of money then lose it all.
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arbster
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Post by arbster on Oct 27, 2017 14:50:30 GMT
4% is a great return and I will never be ungrateful if I get that kind of rate but trying to understand how the system works. Sorry, you clearly missed the fact that my tongue was firmly in my cheek. 4% is a terrible gross return for an investment as risky as P2P, especially of the unsecured, small business kind that LC peddles. The gross rate on my LC investments was also 12-13%, but thanks the significant number of defaults, none of which has been recovered, I'm seeing a below-inflation net return. And before anyone asks, no, I wasn't particularly exposed to one borrower, and each default represents less than 4% of my investment.
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arbster
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Post by arbster on Oct 26, 2017 7:03:46 GMT
You should be thankful if you get 4.3%, let alone the headline rate. Thanks to LendingCrowd's abysmal credit assessment and recovery processes my XIRR for the past 13 months is 1.82%, although that's up from the all-time low of 0.23%.
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arbster
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MoneyThing (MT) in Administration
Supercars ...
Sept 19, 2017 16:18:17 GMT
Post by arbster on Sept 19, 2017 16:18:17 GMT
I was mildly alarmed by MT taking advice on enforcement options - I had expected the cars to be quite easy to locate, take possession of and sell at, say, 75% of the valuation to aforementioned economically-insulated HNW individuals.
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arbster
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Post by arbster on Aug 9, 2017 8:04:28 GMT
*without?
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arbster
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Post by arbster on Jun 9, 2017 6:37:29 GMT
I put my money where my mouth is and got around 8:1 on there being any result other than a Tory majority. Looks like you may be one of a small handful of winners from last night's result. Congratulations - I hope you put enough on to cover the financial impact of this next period of instability.
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arbster
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Post by arbster on Jun 8, 2017 7:39:32 GMT
Thanks fp , I'm aware of the update but it doesn't provide an answer as to why the discussions surrounding the purchase ended, so please MoneyThing could I seek your help as to why this occurred? I think the point is that it was the seller that walked away, not the purchaser.
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arbster
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Post by arbster on May 25, 2017 8:06:05 GMT
LendingCrowd really is a sorry shower - £0.00 recoveries for me too. Excluding the marketing money my XIRR is 0.67%, but I don't expect to stay in the black for long. I genuinely begrudge them the fees they've charged me. The most positive thing I can say about LendingCrowd is that they make FC look less incompetent.
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arbster
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Post by arbster on Apr 12, 2017 12:37:37 GMT
I tend to think they are all as bad/good as each other - much of a muchness - I suspect other platforms have just as many issues but we just haven't uncovered them yet. I think they are all operating in an edgy, risky, fast moving area and frequently get it wrong precisely because they are not uber-cautious banks which we choose not to invest in. I thank this forum for highlighting Lendy's issues, but I think picking on Lendy is letting others off the hook who are probably just as chaotic. ie they're all potentially ponzi - but Lendy continues to deliver good returns so would get my vote,,,, Sure, I agree there's a lot of poor practice out there, and FC has certainly shown a similar disdain for lenders for a much longer time, and I'm sure the forum has had plenty to say about that too, so it's not just Lendy being picked on. You seem to be describing an award for the lender who is "not as bad as some others and offering very good returns". As such, I'd agree, but there are a few platforms I'd prefer over Lendy, in some cases despite defaults, simply because I believe they're trying to do the right thing. It feels like Lendy has just mostly been lucky, and the lack of transparency around the recovery from the most recent default just adds to my unease about the health of the underlying organisation and its business practices.
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arbster
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Post by arbster on Apr 12, 2017 11:53:47 GMT
Judged on my time with them (since floaty times) they'd win - lots of loans, simple and clear website, fun, good returns, savers not lost any capital, until recently most loans uber-liquid, recently loads of availability etc etc. You tell me who beats all that? Judged by the mood on this forum, they'd lose. I continue to marvel at the disconnect between the two Jack P Not casting any aspersions or suggesting there's anything untoward going on, but both Ponzi and Madoff had amazing figures and no one lost any money, until they lost it all, and the Internet stocks bubble made a lot of people rich, then poor almost overnight. The mood on the forum is based on the fact that Lendy has become extraordinarily successful from putting other peoples' money at risk, but seemingly show little respect for those people's need / desire to manage that risk, with lapses in attention to detail that surely would not happen if the money was theirs.
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arbster
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Post by arbster on Apr 11, 2017 14:31:23 GMT
No, most platforms structure any fees as a borrower fee or a platform administration fee or such like, not a lender fee. It is not taken from the interest paid to lenders, but before the distribution of interest to lenders, the lenders never have it so there is no tax due on it. BM pay the interest and then deduct the fee from the lenders balance. Although FC do quote interest including their fee, but say that HMRC have advised that taxable income is the amount net of their fees. All rather inconsistent and unsatisfactory, really.
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arbster
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Post by arbster on Apr 11, 2017 11:13:17 GMT
We pride ourselves on being contactable and responsive to client questions, and it is clear a certain level of client engagement is required with our model (BondMason is a "transparent box" rather than a "black box" as one forum member once stated). Given this, we were presented with a difficult choice: - (1) Significantly reduce client engagement / not engage with clients
- (2) Continue to engage with all clients, increase the minimum to £20-25k+ and keep the fee at 1%
- (3) Continue to engage with all clients, increase the minimum to £5k and increase the blended fee
We opted for choice (3) as we wanted to keep as many of the clients with smaller balances as possible.
If I'm entirely honest, I might have preferred (1). The "transparency" of the platform could be delivered through the website, and although minimal visibility of underlying investments is available that is part of the attraction a managed investment service. If not (1), then applying a minimum investment amount of c. £5k might have had the desired outcome by itself - many smaller investors can be quite "high maintenance", whereas those with more significant portfolios will be happy to leave the platform to manage them in accordance with the principles they bought into when first investing.
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arbster
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Post by arbster on Apr 11, 2017 7:04:17 GMT
I must confess to being disappointed by this move, and unsurprised to see the general discontent on here. I've been a fan of BondMason to date, and remain a fan of the model. The main problem I have is the way that this is proposed to be introduced, that it applies retrospectively to already invested lenders, and the fact that it comes so early in the life of a platform that has, frankly, promised much but not yet delivered fully in terms of returns for lenders. I see the headline rates, but a very small proportion of the members of this forum appear to be receiving anything like the XIRR that was forecast. If I'd had a few months of averaging 7% (after fees) then I'd feel a bit more comfortable about giving BM the benefit of the doubt. Also, my account remains below the minimum investment requirement, but I've been trying to increase it. However, like others, I'm reluctant to deposit more money while my invested amount remains below 90%. I'd previously stated an intention to drip-feed money into my account each time it reaches 95% investment, but at the current rate I'm not sure I'll get there by July. The clincher for me is the significant increase in fees. If BM was able to structure those fees in the way that the likes of Funding Circle has then the pain of the increase would be somewhat alleviated. I'd ask stevefindlay to look again at this, to see whether everything possible has been done.
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arbster
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Post by arbster on Apr 5, 2017 14:40:42 GMT
Paul, have a look at some other websites and how they provide breakdowns of PFs for investor appraisal and then compare it to Ly's note saying 2% to be topped up with cashflow. We have asked many times simply what is the current balance. This will allow us to assess its availability and how much still needs to be topped up against a rapidly growing 9M gross default book. Quite so. A provision fund that is empty simply isn't a provision fund at all - one might argue that it's misrepresentation to imply that it's 2% when could be orders of magnitude less. Many would say that people shouldn't rely on the Provision Fund, but so long as Lendy claim to have one I would like to ensure I have factored it appropriately into my overall risk assessment when investing/remaining invested with Lendy.
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arbster
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Post by arbster on Apr 3, 2017 10:27:04 GMT
But what I am concerned about, in a purely selfish way of course, is that should there be a large influx of new investors attracted by trendy logos and new authorisations what it will mean to interest rates and ultimately my returns. In a similarly selfish way, ablrate's full approval gives me confidence that one potential aspect of platform risk has been removed, namely that they were perhaps operating in a way that was unsustainable or unacceptable. FCA approval suggests that experts have got "under the hood" at ablrate in a way that no investor ever could and given it a clean bill of health. It doesn't mean that every loan they put up will be good, and due diligence will still be required, but they're not going to be closed down by the authorities any time soon.
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