happy
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Post by happy on Jun 18, 2016 10:16:37 GMT
And not so many weeks ago everyone was bitching madly about the huge quantity of loans on the SM and how this lack of liquidity was destroying the platform, how times change! Yes I too am somewhat frustrated by the current slow-down in loans but it seems to me that some investors want the best of both worlds, how does a platform please everyone even some of the time is beyond me. The current state of the SM over on SS is certainly causing a few concerns for some investors there right now.
Perhaps AC have done a good job of increasing their investor base and therefore the number of investors wanting a piece of this loan means that is all there is to go around. It takes less than 6000 investors wanting in on this deal to get £84 each and less than 3000 if they all invested in the MLIA and GBBA as I do (I got 2 x 84.80)
It seems that without a huge increase in loan volumes AC will not be a great place for those wanting 4 or 5 figure investments in individual loans. I for one don't have a problem with this as I don't play at that level. Perhaps this is the future for AC and not necessarily a bad thing for platform stability I think.
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happy
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Post by happy on Jun 12, 2016 7:11:05 GMT
I like the current AC a lot (I was less impressed in the early days but they have been very innovative, and mostly all changes have been good ones in my view). The QAA sweep function is brilliant and unique among the platforms I'm in (do any others have a similar thing?) Some disappointing defaults, yes, but there are the provision fund protected accounts if you don't want the "pain" of defaults, and there's also been recoveries. I'm not a huge fan of the lender votes, I'd prefer AC (who one assumes are the experts) to do what they think is in the lenders' best interests. Rates are generally lower than they were, but rates across P2P are falling and I don't think the 12% platforms will be able to stay there long. In the business and property sector, I guess the smaller platforms have to follow FC's lead. Agree with everything markr said, AC in my top 2 platforms by investment size and the one I feel most comfortable with for larger SME investments. I have 5 figure sums in MLIA, GBBA and 30DAY (pending ISA opening) and 4 figures in GEIA. Ultra easy to use once you understand how buying instructions work. I believe the information provided to investors and the management team are among the best in the business, they are active on this forum and regularly recieve praise (and the odd bit of criticism!) from forum members. I have always had a medium risk approach to all my investing so tend to use a lot of Collectives on the Stock Market and diversify widely and personally having moved away from FC for unsecured SME, never felt totally comfortable with higher risk 12% one-fits-all bullet loans on SS and not wanting to invest in exotics (a.k.a. things I don't understand like planes and works of art) AC is the platform that fits my risk profile best and that I have most confidence in, both now and in it's apparent direction and potential future. Only down sides for me are recent problems in loan supply resulting in more money coming back than I have invested recently (should be fixed moving forward) and rates having dropped somewhat but I see this as a possitive management move reflecting the way the market has moved and should provide a more stable future. Love the innovation on the site, nothing like it anywhere else, I even don't mind investing in loans to 40 decimal places Happy investing!
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happy
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Post by happy on Jun 11, 2016 10:15:21 GMT
Has anyone else withdrawn their pre-funding instruction on #282 ? Yes I did, wasn't in for very much but then put £50 back on just for diversification purposes or perhaps a bit of despair creaping in with my growing cash balance in AC.! Mind you they still look better than that Car Wash Company you saw on FC the other day wanting £60k, profits and growth were actually not bad but assets of about £300.... that would be 2 pressure washers, 2 buckets, 2 sponges and maybe 1 chamois leather between them then
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happy
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Post by happy on Jun 1, 2016 12:03:36 GMT
I purchase low rate MLIA loans for loan diversification or asset class diversification. Maybe once the GBBA actually properly diversifies then I might put more into my GBBA and less into low rate MLIA loans but right now I am too concerned about getting a load more of something I already hold more than enough of.
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happy
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Post by happy on Jun 1, 2016 7:36:18 GMT
Hmm, chill out, hopefully no one calls the lawyers. Barclays was 3 minutes past mid night at paying my ISA interest, was almost going to phone them up. Terrifying ordeal. Here here! Obviously interest cannot be paid until AFTER the end of the month otherwise it would be still accruing and therefore lenders are technically not legally entitled to all of it yet.....Doh!! I think there are some people investing in P2P today that should maybe consider a different, perhaps less stressful, home for their money .....perhaps a bank
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happy
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Post by happy on May 28, 2016 7:24:48 GMT
Data from altfi.com loan book would indictate that Zopa need consumer peer cash less and less.... So Zopa is more a B2B (Bank to Business) Lending Platform than P2P now....pretty soon they'll just be calling themselves a bank and offering around 2% for 5 years..... FWIW over last year I am set to achieve over 6% on RS with a mixed 5y/3y and Rolling portfolio that allows me all the flexibility i need so I'm more than happy with RS.
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happy
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Post by happy on May 27, 2016 19:49:54 GMT
I'd love to be able to check the CR for any hint of it paying off, but currently get directed through 502 gateways. The same for all document links on all AC loans, at least the few I've just tried. Is it just me? Me too. chris for your info if you happen to be around. If you have having an evening off, that is fine too! 502 for me as well...
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happy
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Post by happy on May 27, 2016 19:48:19 GMT
The lady says it was Funny Critters loan 5361, page# /30025 (assuming you are allowed access), 'expansion loan' (even back then the titles were content free it seems). Well thanks for the hint. ...5 631 is the baby! What a place to drop a typo! I should've gone straight to the page# instead of looking on the SM on the off-chance. Doh Currently some for sale, so everyone can get to the page, not that anyone is interested of course. Compared to most Fudged Calculations B loans the financials of this would look like an A++++ today. Interesting to see what an FC B loan looked like 2 years ago. Oh how times change and not always for the better
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happy
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Post by happy on May 27, 2016 19:37:20 GMT
I have always used Zopa for diversification since I started in P2P and I stayed with the Classic product when the new products came out as I did not want any exposure to unsecured loans where I can't choose the borrowers. However, with the reduction of Classic from 5% to 4.3% for SafeGuarded but none the less still unsecured loans I am thinking that perhaps a better place for my money might be somewhere like Landbay with asset backed loans but still offering similar rates. I would love to hear Zopa's explanation as to why they feel they can reduce rates of their SafeGuard product by 14% in the space of a few months with almost no reason. So where is the 0.7% going? Are rates to borrowers plummeting by a similar amount, have they changed the risk-profile of Classic SafeGuard loans resulting in significantly lower risk / lower return product, are they using it to pump more money into the SafeGuard fund in case of an economic down-turn or is it all going to Zopa themselves to try and get the company profitable at last. I actually think all of the above reasons could be seen as perfectly acceptable to many investors but the weak, almost non reason given in their email was, I'm afraid, not acceptable for me. Without some proper explanation from Zopa that I feel comfortable with I feel that I will have to forgo my platform diversification and take the "Long Road out of Zopa"
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happy
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Post by happy on May 20, 2016 13:14:18 GMT
I'm Laurence too, do you think RS could just call us all Bruce!
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happy
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Post by happy on Apr 16, 2016 19:56:43 GMT
Ouch! 6 days! Now that is not so good! Perhaps I will avoid busy holiday periods when moving bigger sums, thanks for the info.
Of course now with more flexibility in selling out on the rolling market you can always shunt your maturing money to a more convenient date but reinvesting and then selling out when you want to transfer the money. Not tried this myself but in thoery it should work better than either uninvested money sitting around or transfering on a Friday afternoon and not seeing the money until Monday pm.
BTW I just worked out that to match my max in RS rolling over the last 12 months in FSCS protected accounts I would have needed to open and then fund monthly over 24 interest paying current accounts between me and my better half. As there are only 4 credible providers left offering accounts (2-3k max in each) that we don't already use to the maximum I reckon that would only give us a maximum of 12 each holding individual and joint accounts with all so it is not practically achievable anyway. Average return would be 2.8% as opposed to about 3.7% in RS and I wouldn't need most of the accounts now as my cash has been redistributed elsewhere.
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happy
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Post by happy on Apr 16, 2016 17:42:21 GMT
I have never had a withdrawal from RS take longer than the advertised next day, 4pm and I would obviously not withdraw on a friday thru sunday to avoid longer delays than this due to the weekend.. I accept it is 1 days interest lost getting money out but I don't have money constantly moving in and out of P2P accounts so the overall effect for me is negligible and is more than compensated for by the higher overall interest rate gained and the ease of switching reinvestment into drawdown. I would agree with you that for people who are regularly moving money in and out of P2P accounts it would have a bigger impact, I only have this kind of activity going on between my multiple interest paying bank current accounts which I consider are accounts (and organisations) designed to support this kind of activity. In a perfect world all transfers to/from P2P would be instant but due to costs most are not. However, with the way I manage my money flows the occasional 1 day loss of interest has minimal effect on my overall investment return. Now 3 days wait from the likes of FC, well that does annoy me somewhat
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happy
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Post by happy on Apr 16, 2016 13:28:48 GMT
RS current Rolling Market rate, last match 2.9%, 1 to 4 days get hold of funds with lose if interest, lose of interest while waiting for match, unkown risk to your funds. Not sure I would call the 3% from the banks as measly when compared to RS.
I have been using RS for the 5 year and the monthly for quite a while. I average 3.5% in the monthly and 6.4% in the 5 year. There are no account charges, no required direct debits or minimum monthly funding options and I can move my money out of the monthly by next day faster payment with no loss on interest. I have done this several times and it has always arrived exactly on time. Best of all I can put £10 in or £100,000 in and I get the same rate. What is not to like? Totally agree, I have achieved similar rates to you but also used the 3 year when it was above 5%. I'm currently investing my 3 and 5 year repayments into the monthly rolling as I need to accumulate a lump sum for some children's education fees. I can do all this inside one platform with a few clicks whilst earning over 6% on my 3/5y but still eaning more than Santadar would pay me on my accumulating lump sum. When I am near to needing the money I either just stop reinvestments a little ahead of time or sell out then I complete my transfer request and I have the money the next day. Not sure where "days of lost interest" fits into the RS experience, never suffered it myself (apart from on FC). That reminds me, I must see how many more unsecured SME loans I have managed to exit from thanks to the ipad induced buying frenzy going on at Fast Cash Happy Weekend all!
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happy
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Post by happy on Apr 15, 2016 18:35:14 GMT
Not sure where these hoops are, I have one account which requires direct debits; I pay my phone, council tax, electricity etc and get good cash back. Most of the rest require only monthly deposit, easy, set up monthly sanding orders (just to be clear you only need to do this once), pay from bank one to bank 2, estimate expected interest in bank 2 account, pay the same amount + expected interest to bank 3, keep going until all accounts funded, pay last bank back to bank 1. This happens on a set day every month, all completed in short period of time usually before I get up, no intervention, no need to monitor anything as it funds will stay very close to capped rate.
You wore me out with all that "hooping" Don't end up getting it wrong and go transferring the whole lot to your FC account or you might unintentionally win yourself a new ipad air
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happy
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RateSetter (RS)
Rolling...
Apr 15, 2016 12:27:27 GMT
Post by happy on Apr 15, 2016 12:27:27 GMT
So oik , you are telling me that setting "your rate" with Ratesetter and logging in every now and again to see where the market is relative to your money and making the odd adjustment is more hassle than setting up and managing multiple bank transfers and direct debits to make sure you meet all the qualifying conditions etc then I think you are trying to kid us all. Don't get me wrong, I have well over £50k in 3-5% current accounts and the like so I know what is involved there in addition to other near-cash investments such that I would not need to call on my P2P money in the next 12 months in anything other than a total crisis. But I also have a pretty decent 5 figure sum in Zopa and even more in Ratesetter and I can assure you this has earnt me a better return for my effort than any other P2P, S&S ISA, SIPP etc I own, bar none! Yes I get a better return on other P2P sites but they take time and effort, Ratesetter (and Zopa) can never be described as difficult. All these current accounts are fine until the banks change the T&Cs, just right now it suites them to give us 3% or so but I doubt this will be the case forever and that will be hastle finding new homes for our money. Once you have opened the accounts and setup the monthly standing orders there is no work to do so no hassle or time wasting. Compare this to RS which I find time consuming as I am not happy for my funds to be leant out at MR or lend now rate and as I do not want to have funds sitting doing nothing, I only place funds on the Market when the interest rate is at an acceptable level, given the volatile nature of the rates this takes up a certain amount of time. Also I have to move every capital/interest payment and early repayments manually to my linked bank account and then check that bank account from 4pm onwards. I do this so I can move the money to another account where I can get interest as I try to not lose more than the 1 to 4 days loss of interest with every RS withdrawal. Every event is recorded in a spreadsheet so I can calculate my tax position and if necessary change tack. There is also the research required to try to find out how RS actually works as it a lot more complicated than it first seems, keeping up with changes like the current Rolling change to find the impact and special offers which trash rates so I know when to stay away. This all takes time compared to my bank accounts which are not only predictable but as I have said take up no time once setup. Fair coments.... and it just shows that it is horses for courses. I personally have never felt the need to track every transaction with RS (or Zopa) so don't have that overhead and I am happy with the small amount of work to manage things and with my understanding of how they work. Bottom line for me is I simply do not have enough direct debits to qualify to open enough current accounts to be able to invest the extra cash I have in RS and Z so it makes sense for me to do both.
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