happy
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Post by happy on Mar 12, 2016 22:05:07 GMT
adrianc , suggest start the AC experience by browsing this (pinned) thread, especially the "How it works" summary: p2pindependentforum.com/post/43867/threadAC is probably one of the lowest-effort platforms to use once you understand how it all works, but it can look complicated initially. Hey, chris , what do we get for snagging you another one? Heh. There's no scheme in place at the moment but the board has just approved a marketing team project to devise one for the board to approve down the road. Probably another month or two and something will be in place. How about I do something instead - what one feature would lenders like me to prioritise to make the platform better for them? It would have to be something implementable within a reasonable time frame (i.e. less than 1 man week); it would have to have little to no on going cost (so no large banking fees or anything like that); and it should not require board level approval (no changes to our terms and conditions, etc.). I know there are a handful of requested features that are still on our to do lists around improving MLIA functions, and those are on my to do list to be completed within the next two months, but I'll get one member of our team to drop everything either next week or the week after to implement a user nominated feature. Don't mind how you decide which feature but SteveT I am putting you in change of choosing and your final decision, subject to my approval that it meets the above criteria, is what will stand. OK how about these chris , SteveT, get your automated diversification tool tested and out of the cage on the MLIA and GEIA then produce a reports dashboard that show diversification across both MLIA and GEIA. That would make these 2 accounts much more friendly to use in terms of confidence in what individual loan exposure is and how diversification is progressing over time. Ultimately I would love to see you bringing all GBBA/GEIA and MLIA loans into a top level reporting dashboard showing graphically all loans, per sector exposure etc with click-through capability to drill down to the details. Stage 3 would be to provide automated investment control through this reporting dasboard to control an automated investment policy by account type, loan sector.etc etc... e.g. imagine an intelligent autobid tool that would build a portfolio based on you individual rate, LTV, loan sector, PF preferences etc driven through the GUI.........that is more than a weeks work me thinks!
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happy
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Post by happy on Mar 12, 2016 21:36:10 GMT
I would really like to find an SME-lending platform that I can trust. Are you lending on AC? A good flow of SME loans coming through these days but, crucially, with asset backing and not just PGs. Existing loans can be accumulated steadily via the shrapnelator too with pretty much zero effort. I would second looking at AC. Yes it does not seem so obvious at the likes of FC to invest in but it is way the best platform for relaxed P2P investing. I have managed to get a decent 5 figure sum invested in over 50 loans in 3-4 months, getting around 9.4% with a really low LTV average, also dumped a chunk in the GBBA at7% with provision fund and just recently got about 1k invested in the GEIA green energy account, also 7% with a provision fund. The QAA is a real gem being able invest directly with instant access and to sweep idle cash from any FC account and get 3.75% while it's not being used. There are issues with AC as on all platforms but I feel AC engage really well with investors, the amount of information on loans and loan management is generally very good, I different league to FC.
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happy
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Post by happy on Mar 10, 2016 17:00:21 GMT
Since December I've been trying out a statistical approach to managing my FC portfolio, based on default rates for each risk band/term across the whole loan book, since which time I've had no new defaults. It does require me to sell parts after anything from 1 to 13 months, depending on the statistical likelihood of defaults, and finding replacement parts of comparable quality can be challenging. It is an imperfect model in many ways - it assumes consistency in FC's credit assessment procedures over time, and clearly requires the economic conditions to remain relatively benign - but at it's largely automated and seems to respond logically to changes in the loan book. As others have pointed out, less favourable economic conditions are probably on the horizon, so I plan to tighten my criteria and cash out the capital freed up, rather than re-invest. Interesting approach arbster. So how would you decide how long to hold on to an A loan? I ask as I have had 3 A loans go pop in the last 6 months, one after one payment, one after 3 and one after 6 months but it was 3 months behind by then when FC defaulted them! I'm far from impressed with FCs risk grading to be honest and tightened up my selection criteria a lot more recently Unfortunately this resulted in me rejecting about 90% of what FC class as A+/A and reducing investment amount per loan - making the whole exercise of investing in FC way too time consuming for too little reward me thinks! Good luck!
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happy
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Post by happy on Mar 10, 2016 12:06:54 GMT
Removed questions, ignored questions, loans not linked to other loans from same borrower, financials more often than not 12 months or more out of date even on supposed A+ grade loans, new loans issued to existing borrowers without consulting or even informing holders of existing loan parts, no consultation on action taken over late loans/defaults, no obvious evidence of any loan monitoring for SME loans, most loans A+ or A since fixed rates.................
Basically when most of your retail money comes from autobid lenders who don't/can't ask questions or read financials then why bother with anything.
What bothers me the most is that 10% of SME loans is apparently our Governments money, wonder if HM Govt. realises they 10% funded a loan for some company to buy their own yacht last year or for another to pay their tax bill!
There is nothing wrong with unsecured SME lending but I am convinced that most FC lenders do not truely understand the risks they are taking in lending unsecured to SMEs at these rates with no DD. God help them when the economy slumps again.
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happy
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Post by happy on Mar 8, 2016 15:59:34 GMT
Don't understand all this talk of 30 days to lend; This is what my account is showing atm; Lent out at 5.0% Last 24 hours £10.00 Last 7 days £168.23 Last 30 days £388.23 Any cash i put into Zopa gets lent at 5% within about 24 hours, am quite happy with that given the SG guarantee. For me the slightly lower rates than other platforms are compensated by the stability and security of Zopa. davex, I took my figures from my dashboard, they currently show £5.33m queued in the 5 year market and lending rate currently at £256k per day. Now if you factor that relending gets priority over new money I dont see how new investment is going to be lent in less than about 3 weeks unless the dashboard is not giving the right info.
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happy
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Post by happy on Mar 8, 2016 15:31:15 GMT
Me too, over the last year invested over £20k in hand picked mainly A+/A SME and property loans but after 3 SME A loan defaults all within a few months of draw-down and another loan looking like its going the same way I am done with unsecured SME lending at these rates. Too much effort trying to find the few companies worth lending to and defaults eating away at meagre returns. I may decide to stay with lower LTV secured property deals on FC for diversification reasons, not sure yet. Any views on SS? Not ventured there yet. Last one out flick the light switch please, I'm sure autobodge and the E bots can work in the dark........ 100% on SS. Leave the FC boat until it is stable... It has honestly become a true bank (too much money and not enough care in selecting borrowers or following trough properly the lates/defaults) and we are now subsidising the funds. Certainly not worth anymore. I am patiently offloading everything. Thanks @hor1997 I will take a look down SS way soon, good luck.
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happy
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Post by happy on Mar 8, 2016 14:02:55 GMT
Me too, over the last year invested over £20k in hand picked mainly A+/A SME and property loans but after 3 SME A loan defaults all within a few months of draw-down and another loan looking like its going the same way I am done with unsecured SME lending at these rates. Too much effort trying to find the few companies worth lending to and defaults eating away at meagre returns. I may decide to stay with lower LTV secured property deals on FC for diversification reasons, not sure yet.
Any views on SS? Not ventured there yet.
Last one out flick the light switch please, I'm sure autobodge and the E bots can work in the dark........
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happy
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Post by happy on Mar 7, 2016 12:34:43 GMT
Definately something strange going on...£5.73m queued on the longer market, well above the normal and at current leding rates a 30 day wait to lend. Short market looks really wrong as well at +60days for new money. Maybe ATM Z are feeding new loans with short-term institutional money to ensure a big wadge of repayments looking for a new home in their new products!
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happy
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Post by happy on Mar 4, 2016 17:32:04 GMT
I got neither either! happened to log in and see 238 earlier, better go back and have a look at 239 to see if I agree with your analysis before the kids want their Friday night pizzas!
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happy
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Post by happy on Feb 25, 2016 16:42:33 GMT
I have been on P2P for about a year on 7 platforms, happy with most that I have invested in though have avoided the more exotic high interest platforms so far.
love AC with the relaxed interaction needed even for hands-on selective investment via the MLIA, no bots, no feeding frenzy/fastest finger or disfunctional SM sub-culture to contend with. With AC you can do selective P2P with Due Diligence and still have a life! my personal favourite ATM.
RS is a breeze manually setting your own rate, you should never need to fall foul of market rate crashes! I get pretty good rates average 5y +6.3% / 3y 5.6% / 1M 3.7% and never got stung with a low-rate loan contract I didn't want. With amortized loan repayments even in the 5 year market you are only putting about 50% of your capital on the market for longer than 2 years so I'm happy with 6.3% and good PF protection for a decent chunk of my total P2P investment.
Probably looking to disinvest in Z depending on rates etc post their new offerings as current offering is marginal at 5% IMO and only looks like going down.
Biggest disappointment for me is FC, rates dropped since fixed rate, masively time consuming, have to spend hours checking web site almost constantly to have any chance of beating the bots to the decent deals especially any B-E loans worth having, spend a huge amount of time working through seemingly endless low-grade suposedly A+/A loans (many of which seem to be WL rejects now) to find the odd one that you would be prepared to consider lending to at circa 8% unsecured! I have highly diversified (+300 loans) hand picked portfolio but still suffered almost 1% of loans defaulting/3+ months late (all A grade loans worryingly!). Have moved more to secured property loans recently but even these are not great value for A+loans at 8% with no cashback and 10% A property loans are getting pretty rare now. SM now seems awash with flipped property parts and bot purchased c/d/e loans at a premium. IMO fixed rates have killed any oppportunity to make a decent return vs. time invested on FC so will be winding down this little venture soon.
Nobody mentions LW much. I would be interested in any views on them, I know they are small have a little toe in here but not sure if I should increase it.
Thanks for all the help and advice the members of this forum gives us newer investors, very much appreciated, stay happy!
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happy
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Post by happy on Feb 3, 2016 11:48:14 GMT
Thanks jjc, I appreciate your reply, very helpful. It also remains to be seen where P2P lender rates will be post IFISA and how much this new wave of lenders will understand their risk for their return!
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happy
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Post by happy on Feb 3, 2016 11:12:35 GMT
I agree with you but the underwriters significant holding in most of ACs loan book means they exert a not insignificant influence on how AC chooses to manage their loan book in most cases and therefore has almost certainly shaped their behavior and policies
I see nothing but constructive engagement and dialogue in on-going monitoring and management of loans and default situations at AC, something that is sadly lacking in most other SME biased sites I invest in or have looked at investing in and I feel strongly from personal experience that imposing penalties just because it says you can in the contract is more often than not the wrong approach, certainly initially. I repeat that I believe clear guidelines of the default protocol that is followed should be published by AC so we all understand it and that is what we sign up to when lending here.
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happy
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Post by happy on Feb 3, 2016 9:37:04 GMT
Does no one see the "Elephants in the room" here with regards to default penalties!
All AC loans are underwritten before we "retail lenders" get our hands on them. As I understand it these underwriters continue to hold a significant and sometimes majority share in almost all live AC loans. So, it follows that any action AC takes or wants to take with regard to default penalties etc would have to be with underwriters approval.
Evidence provided on this forum suggests that AC do apply penalty interest in many situations but obviously not in all. Surely if the underwriters of AC loans are happy with how AC manages it's loan book and specifically the management of potential default situations (which we would have to accept is the likely case or AC would not be in business any more!) then perhaps their approach is the right one..........
Having said that, I do think some agreed and published guidelines would provide some much needed clarity here. As they say in politics so often now, these are the Red Lines!
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happy
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Funding Circle (FC)
19665
Feb 1, 2016 12:09:23 GMT
Post by happy on Feb 1, 2016 12:09:23 GMT
Definate mistake, looks much more like it should be an A+ loan to me
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happy
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Post by happy on Feb 1, 2016 9:00:34 GMT
I also have nothing repaid this morning in monthly, 3 year and 5 year markets. Looks like a system wide issue here. Also looking at the market queues it does not look like the normal level of daily borrower orders have gone on the system yet on the monthly so perhaps RS have a processing delay.
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