ejohn
Posts: 32
Likes: 11
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Post by ejohn on Jul 19, 2014 19:48:01 GMT
Just for the record, I signed in and got verified last night without any undue problems. I am a gmail user and all emails have been as expected. As regards the password, I am pleased they prompt for a highly secure one, even from those of us who can't claim to have young minds!!!!
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Post by GSV3MIaC on Jul 19, 2014 19:56:21 GMT
With the FCA pretty hot on anti-money laundering we have to take ID, of course. We can add in an input box for a driving license number, that was something we have been looking at which some may find easier (especially those without passports!) Unfortunately we tried to just have the passport number inputted, but the Tracesmart system requires the whole number at the bottom. We have tried to make that as intuitive as we can - with the chevrons pre-completed for UK, and an option for international numbers (we have had some international passport registrations that have passed). There are even people, like my partner, with neither passport nor driving license!! We managed to register her with ZOPA, and FC, so I guess it is possible (voters register would work, bank account in her name, etc.).
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Post by ablrate on Jul 19, 2014 20:09:23 GMT
With the FCA pretty hot on anti-money laundering we have to take ID, of course. We can add in an input box for a driving license number, that was something we have been looking at which some may find easier (especially those without passports!) Unfortunately we tried to just have the passport number inputted, but the Tracesmart system requires the whole number at the bottom. We have tried to make that as intuitive as we can - with the chevrons pre-completed for UK, and an option for international numbers (we have had some international passport registrations that have passed). There are even people, like my partner, with neither passport nor driving license!! We managed to register her with ZOPA, and FC, so I guess it is possible (voters register would work, bank account in her name, etc.). Hi Absolutely no problem registering for those who don't have a passport, driving license etc, we would just have to do a manual verification (proof of ID and address, scanned and sent). If anyon eneeds any assistance with this please email admin - at-ablerate.com and will will sort that out for you.
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Post by batchoy on Jul 19, 2014 21:05:51 GMT
There are even people, like my partner, with neither passport nor driving license!! We managed to register her with ZOPA, and FC, so I guess it is possible (voters register would work, bank account in her name, etc.). Hi Absolutely no problem registering for those who don't have a passport, driving license etc, we would just have to do a manual verification (proof of ID and address, scanned and sent). If anyon eneeds any assistance with this please email admin - at-ablerate.com and will will sort that out for you. Well at the moment the site has fallen at the first hurdle, after 6 failed attempts at the captcha - 0 o O l 1, on the seventh I got to the point of the requirement for my passport number: Sorry, I don't give out personal identity information to people who don't need it, that goes for my passport, driving licence, NI Number and NHS number etc. Others have managed to prove my identity without them and having been hit by identity fraud in the past I am not going to handing out this information now. So I guess that Ablrate will for the present be going on my list of platforms that I can't/won't lend on.
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smee
Member of DD Central
Posts: 84
Likes: 50
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Post by smee on Jul 20, 2014 15:09:38 GMT
Ablrate have got off to a bit of a bad start with their registration system, but I contacted them at admin@ablrate.com and was impressed by the speed at which they sorted my registration problem out. There is no way around sending them scanned documents but they seem flexible about what documents are acceptable. I admit that this is a bit of a pain, and it looks like it will put off a lot of investors. Having got into their system I still think it looks promising, but I'll reserve judgement for a while.
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Post by yorkshireman on Jul 20, 2014 16:05:38 GMT
I completely agree with Batchoy’s remark about proving ID without supplying passport details etc. I won’t be considering Ablrate until a better method of verification is introduced.
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Post by davee39 on Jul 20, 2014 18:42:28 GMT
This company does not interest me BUT passport number is a sensible and efficient means of online verification.
While some companies can manage without, most banks, building societies etc still require documents including certified copies of passports or driving licence. If you do not trust an organisation with this information you should not be trusting them with your your money, and, of necessity, your bank account details.
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Post by ablrate on Jul 21, 2014 10:42:06 GMT
Good morning Captcha Your points have all been well taken on the registration system. It appears the captcha we use is not popular so we are having the developers replace it with another system that we believe will be more user friendly. We use captcha to maintain the integrity of the user base and the site, we do not want to allow automatic registration on the site by spam bots. We are looking at ways to streamline the process, however, and remove captcha completely when an alternative solution is agreed that prevents automatic log ins. ID Unfortunately our hands are tied on this. The FCA say: In order to comply with the FCA anti-money laundering regulations we must perform identity checks. This includes confirming address and confirming ID. We implemented the online checking system from Tracesmart (the same company as other platforms use), in order to make this process more efficient and automated. We understand this is sensitive information and have posted our privacy policy as to how we deal with personal information. We are registered with the Information Commissioner and comply with rules around this. I am not aware of how other platforms deal with their anti-money laundering obligations without checking ID and addresses as it is a requirement as detailed above, and our research showed that all other firms have a policy on this (to comply with the rules). We have had people register on the platform by sending us scanned copies of the ID verification and we can manually verify users on the back-end of our platform. This situation is under review and we aim to add a driving license field for online verification too. We are aware that until users are comfortable with Ablrate, they may just want to have a look around the platform without giving us the information and can do that by leaving the 'I want to verify my account to gain full access' box unchecked. We did this as we were uncomfortable given out such private data until we had looked around other p2p platforms and got ourselves comfortable with them. By doing this you will be registered as a user, but not verified to deposit funds, make bids or see the full details of loans. Once you have had a look around and feel that you would like to verify, deposit and make bids - or just to get access to more information on each loan, you can go to your dashboard, click profile and then edit profile. Once you have completed all the information you can click on the Tracesmart button at the top of the profile section on your dashboard and our system will do a check. Of course, if you would like us to help or to manually verify, you can send a copy of your docs to admin - at - ablrate.com and we will manually verify you on the platform. Email While the majority of emails seem to be going out and received without a problem there have been issues with one provider 'Plusnet' and we have had a number of verification emails that are ending up in junk folders. While this happens to many other companies, we have made inquiries of our developers and of our dedicated server provider, Rackspace to make sure that we are doing all we can to avoid this happening, as a consequence this is what we are doing: 1. We are going to implement the automatic notifications coming from the platform to go through SendGrid. Rackspace have recommended this company as they have a dedicated service for the delivery of a large number of emails. Although our system does not send out 'mass' emails it does send notifications to lenders and borrowers on a number of procedures. For example: - Verification email
- Notifications if you have asked our system to include a loan on a watchlist
- Notification of a new loan
- Notification of deposit of funds
This is a small example of some notifications that the system will send out. These are done automatically to make the system responsive, informative and efficient for everyday actions that you may wish to know about without us using normal emails channel which could become inefficient. 2. Rackspace will be contacting Plusnet on our behalf to make sure that the Rackspace IP is not blacklisted and if so to get it white listed. Rackspace are a very well respected, large business with an excellent reputation for service and security, hence choosing them as our server providers, so we believe this issue will be sorted shortly. Even though it is only affecting one specific provider at the moment we are aware that it could affect others. If this is the case we will have Rackspace reach out to those providers, as and when we become aware of any issues. Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, Hotmail etc do not seem to be affected, but we will continue to monitor. We appreciate all of your feedback and continue to strive to make the platform better. While we are pleased with the number of successful sign ups in our first few days, we are aware of the sign up issues that others are having and are addressing those at the moment. We will update when the changes have been implemented. Regards Ablrate Team
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Post by ablrate on Jul 21, 2014 14:40:53 GMT
ablrate just to confirm - I've not received any emails from you. Also you'll have noted that my email address is not with outlook, but is a subdomain off my ISP (a plusnet brand) who is responsible for all email spam filtering. I suspect those with gmail / hotmail and similiar email addresses will be fne, but those with ISP based accounts or those subscribing to MessageLabs or equivalent filtering service will find ablrate emails dropped. I do have other concerns, but am not inclined to make the effort to articulate them until I can see that your base level systems are fit for purpose. Hi mrclondon Thank you for confirming the email issue. As above we have today spoken with Rackspace who are reaching out to Plusnet for information as to why it wasn't delivered and to have the IP white listed if there are any issues. Regardless of that, it was good feedback which we did not come across in testing, so we wanted to look at a solution that would not allow this to happen in the future. Therefore to solve this problem, and any future issues with notifications, we are implementing a routing system through a dedicated third party provider which will allow us to have certain tools to make sure they are not rejected. This solution will not compromise the secure nature of the emails from Rackspace, but will enhance delivery. Also, and to update yourself and others on the registration issues, we have today implemented the following: (some are being worked on - these are indicated) 1. Verification emails not being received in some case - see above solution being implemented. 2. Some users were finding the password and captcha requirements onerous. We have improved the captcha, removed lower case alphabets, increased the space and removed '0' 'o' 'O' from the images to make it more user friendly. 3. We have changed the password requirement to only a basic limitation of a certain number of characters, with no requirement for capitals and punctuation. Of course we want to make sure that your account is secure so we have changed the password requirements box to a suggestion to help the user create a strong password. 4. Potential customers were going through the first step of the process and then having to do it again when they did not click on a user type. Now, by default, the investor icon is selected. If a user wants to register as a different type of user the other icons can be selected. 5. Users without passports. We are working on adding in a driving licence field and looking into how else we could efficiently verify to comply with FCA requirements. 6. Passport character input. We noticed the passport input was not moving the cursor to the next field when one field was complete. This is being changed today. Thanks again for your feedback.
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baz657
Member of DD Central
Posts: 499
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Post by baz657 on Jul 21, 2014 17:05:54 GMT
You've got to give them 10/10 for effort and communications.
But will it last? Time will tell.
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ilmoro
Member of DD Central
'Wondering which of the bu***rs to blame, and watching for pigs on the wing.' - Pink Floyd
Posts: 10,848
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Post by ilmoro on Jul 21, 2014 17:35:21 GMT
I had no problems registering with site but not as a verified user as at the moment I lack the required documentation. Not a problem as the lack of loans would not encourage me to invest currently. However, I am puzzled by the need to provide the requested documents. I am a lender on several platforms, Z, FC, RS, FK, AS, Well, SS and I have absolutely no recollection of any of them requiring passport or driving licence in order to lend. Perhaps its a change following FCA regulation but I have joined at least one of those platforms since that came in to being. Address verification via electoral role and a verified bank account were required in most instance but no more. A quick look at the T&C on 2 leading sites states that they will carry out checks using credit references agencies & other means and would only require personal documentation in theevent this proved unsuccesful.
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baz657
Member of DD Central
Posts: 499
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Post by baz657 on Jul 21, 2014 18:04:52 GMT
I've only been in this "game" for at the most three months or so and most of the new platforms I have joined have required some form of stringent identity proof.
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ejohn
Posts: 32
Likes: 11
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Post by ejohn on Jul 21, 2014 19:11:52 GMT
You've got to give them 10/10 for effort and communications. But will it last? Time will tell. Given they launched on a Friday and dealt with some pretty difficult queries over the weekend, they seem clearly determined to get the site right. That in my book is a pretty good sign for the future. OK, they have had to get up a learning curve, have had to tread carefully, yet flexibly, around the FCA requirements. Everything is not perfect, but it seems from the actions to date they will achieve good outcomes and we can then move to discussing their offerings. Talking of which, I note from their website that they are expecting to offer some marine and further aircraft loans shortly. I have already made a pledge on the current loan (in spite of a bit of a wait till drawdown) and look forward to evaluating others as they come forward.
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shimself
Member of DD Central
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Post by shimself on Jul 21, 2014 22:57:18 GMT
One thing in the smallprint caught my eye
6.6. In exceptional circumstances and in its absolute discretion, Ablrate (acting as your agent and on your behalf) may agree with the borrower to restructure the loan and amend the Loan Contract in any of the following (limited) ways:
(a) to increase the term by one year, with a corresponding increase in interest rate to the higher of 13.5% or 4% above your interest rate;
(b) to increase the term by two years, with a corresponding increase in interest rate to the higher of 15.5% or 5.5% above your interest rate; or
(c) to increase the term by three years or more, with a corresponding increase in interest rate to the higher of 17.5% or 7% above your interest rate.
6.7 Where we believe that restructuring the loan would be in the interests of our Lending Members, you explicitly agree to Ablrate (acting as your agent) restructuring the loan and amending any contracts with the Borrower. We will notify you of our intentions to amend the loan agreements not less than 1 week before making such arrangements.
6.8 You agree that Ablrate will be acting as agent on your behalf in
(a) negotiating and agreeing any amendments to the Loan Contract; and
(b) entering into the amendment to the Key Contract Terms,
in accordance with clause 6.6.
6.9 You hereby appoint Ablrate (for the duration of your membership of Ablrate) as your agent with full power and capacity to carry out those amendments without your specific agreement. You will then be bound by those changes. You agree and acknowledge that Ablrate shall take on no liabilities, obligations or rights under the Loan Contract as a result of such agency, and you agree that you will continue to be solely liable for and responsible for the rights and obligations under the Loan Contract (as amended).
It seems a bit odd that they don't put such problems to lenders vote
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Post by ablrate on Jul 22, 2014 5:55:19 GMT
Good morning
shimself, thanks for your interest in Ablrate.
The clause is the same, functionally, to that of FCs terms and other p2x platforms. Its purpose is not to negate the rights of a lender to vote on a loan restructure but to protect the best interests of all lending members in the transaction.
In reality any restructuring of a loan (which would only happen if to not restructure would cause default), would only be undertaken if all lending parties agreed. However, in exceptional circumstances, and where it is in the best interests of all lending members, it makes sense to have the ability to restructure the loan quickly without putting it to a vote.
Exceptional circumstances could be:
- In a situation where any delay to achieve a vote would cause default, and where that default would return less to lending members than a restructure. - In a situation where one or more lending members could not be contacted and therefore a quorum could not be achieved, sending a loan into default, where that default would return less to lending members than a restructure - In a situation where there were a hung vote on restructure, causing default etc
Those are the kind of exceptional circumstances where this clause would allow us to act quickly to protect the interests of all lending members in the transaction.
Thanks again Ablrate
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