ramblin rose
Member of DD Central
“Some people grumble that roses have thorns; I am grateful that thorns have roses.” — Alphonse Karr
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Post by ramblin rose on Jul 29, 2014 10:53:55 GMT
Don't like to do it really, Zopa got me in to p2p in 2007?................................................ Sentiment plays zero part in decisions about where I put my money - it's the touchy feely company's way of making you stick around even when you know it doesn't make sense.
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Post by davee39 on Jul 29, 2014 11:40:03 GMT
Last week Zopa lent less than the same week last year, and 25% less than Ratesetter. If Zopa is to thrive they need a complete shakeup of their fiddly business model. The most unsatisfactory part is waiting for 4 months of arrears before Safeguard pays out. I had understood that their last fund raising was aimed at raising funds to permit business development. It is also telling that the communication from their management has dried up on their Forum, which itself is not exactly thriving.
As a later challenger Ratesetter has benefited from the pioneer P2P, but Zopa could now take a few lessons from the upstart and introduce fresh innovation (But please NOT more property bridging loans!!).
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Investor
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Post by Investor on Jul 29, 2014 12:33:45 GMT
Have not put any investment in Z for about a year now however I do recycle cash in it through their auto top up thingy, purely for platform diversification not for rates. Interestingly across all the new loans so far in July in my loan book I have averaged 6.3941%. That is across 23 loans so a small sample. Seems to have gone up quite significantly as previous months had included a large proportion of of 3.7%-3.9% loans whereas this month there are none, hence the blended rate has increased. Once you take off the 1% Z cost it is a 5.4% relatively low risk gain. So had they sent me the 1% cashback email it might have been worth a punt as 5.4 with 1% cashback marginally exceeds the current RS rates. Will now start rapidly withdrawing money from the account and see if I get an email and can be retrospectively included in the new cashback offer, or at least receive an email next time they decide to do another 'disloyalty promotion'. Once again a company that shows disloyalty to loyal customers and promotes loyalty to disloyal customers.
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j
Member of DD Central
Penguins are very misunderstood!
Posts: 2,188
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Post by j on Jul 29, 2014 12:47:02 GMT
Once again a company that shows disloyalty to loyal customers and promotes loyalty to disloyal customers. :DCouldn't have put it better myself!
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mikes1531
Member of DD Central
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Post by mikes1531 on Jul 29, 2014 22:02:46 GMT
Once you take off the 1% Z cost it is a 5.4% relatively low risk gain. So had they sent me the 1% cashback email it might have been worth a punt as 5.4 with 1% cashback marginally exceeds the current RS rates. I think Investor is overestimating the effect of a 1% cashback on a 5-year loan. It does not turn a 5.4% return into a 6.4% return because that 1% is not 1% p.a. it's 1% over the life of the loan, which would be 0.2% p.a. -- though having the effect of twice that because of the reducing balance as a loan is paid off. So a 1% cashback on a Longer loan is about the same as a 0.4% increase in the interest rate on that loan. Which is to say that 1% cashback would bring Zopa returns closer to RS returns, but they'd still be lower.
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shimself
Member of DD Central
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Post by shimself on Jul 31, 2014 14:56:01 GMT
Last week Zopa lent less than the same week last year, and 25% less than Ratesetter. If Zopa is to thrive they need a complete shakeup of their fiddly business model. The most unsatisfactory part is waiting for 4 months of arrears before Safeguard pays out. I had understood that their last fund raising was aimed at raising funds to permit business development. It is also telling that the communication from their management has dried up on their Forum, which itself is not exactly thriving. As a later challenger Ratesetter has benefited from the pioneer P2P, but Zopa could now take a few lessons from the upstart and introduce fresh innovation (But please NOT more property bridging loans!!). What's their problem, do you understand their trading position? There's what 20 people working there, no need for flash premises, they simply take a slice so no inventory problem or margin erosion. Is it the cost of acquiring customers (both sorts)?
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mikes1531
Member of DD Central
Posts: 6,452
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Post by mikes1531 on Jul 31, 2014 15:39:24 GMT
Last week Zopa lent less than the same week last year, and 25% less than Ratesetter. If Zopa is to thrive they need a complete shakeup of their fiddly business model. The most unsatisfactory part is waiting for 4 months of arrears before Safeguard pays out. I had understood that their last fund raising was aimed at raising funds to permit business development. It is also telling that the communication from their management has dried up on their Forum, which itself is not exactly thriving. As a later challenger Ratesetter has benefited from the pioneer P2P, but Zopa could now take a few lessons from the upstart and introduce fresh innovation (But please NOT more property bridging loans!!). What's their problem, do you understand their trading position? There's what 20 people working there, no need for flash premises, they simply take a slice so no inventory problem or margin erosion. Is it the cost of acquiring customers (both sorts)? At the rates they're offering on loans, they probably have no problem finding borrowers. They're having trouble finding investors willing to lend at the rates they're offering. I expect this is because the competition for lenders from other P2P platforms is stiff. The result is that they have a shortage of funds offered by lenders to borrowers and that's restricting how many loans they can make.
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Post by easteregg on Aug 1, 2014 11:46:38 GMT
Last week Zopa lent less than the same week last year, and 25% less than Ratesetter. If Zopa is to thrive they need a complete shakeup of their fiddly business model. The most unsatisfactory part is waiting for 4 months of arrears before Safeguard pays out. I had understood that their last fund raising was aimed at raising funds to permit business development. It is also telling that the communication from their management has dried up on their Forum, which itself is not exactly thriving. As a later challenger Ratesetter has benefited from the pioneer P2P, but Zopa could now take a few lessons from the upstart and introduce fresh innovation (But please NOT more property bridging loans!!). I'm not completely convinced by the metric of loans arranged. If company A offered loans over 3 years whereas company B offered loans over 1 month then - for the same capital - company B would be arranging 36 times more loans than company A. RateSetter have a portion of loans that are 1 month whereas Zopa's minimum is (I believe) 24 months. The better metric on growth is how much additional capital each company attracts over a given period. Unfortunately Zopa - unlike most P2P companies - don't publish capital outstanding so it isn't easy to make a comparison.
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