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Post by stuartassetzcapital on Dec 28, 2019 12:57:27 GMT
Okay so I'm just wandering through some of these discussions but this one caught my eye, I guess it was the AC mans comments, I was curious and also the title as I am in RS and Zopa and wondered why I would pull the plug if not for my own concerns regarding increasing Defaults in Zopa for us and having more recently dabbling with RS for the last year. I know I am a relatively cautious P2Per, despite having probably higher sums in Zopa/RS than I should admit to but at least I've stuck largely to what I know or worse think I know and as many who have crossed my path will probably know i'm a beat inflation and a bit on top person rather than a hard core guy. So Stuart from assetz has passed my view a few times lately, along with a few other new ones to me anyway and some who are blatantly looking for new punters. This thread and another did make me lookup assetz and on the face of it it looked like they might be one to have a closer look at. Today though I looked at some recent threads in the AC board, largely because some of the well respected players started commenting here, and I'm glad I did as it does look like my kinda person should not be looking to AC as a new option after all. (Seems to have a few issues with defaults that I did not understand at first glance - gut kicks in usually at that point) I'd like to say I am really grateful for the AC boards insights and discussions, I got a flavour of it from 3 recent threads, that all is not as rosy as it would seem over on the AC world (PF doesn't look as stable as they might, although to be fair I've never really relied on the PF funds from a head space point of view). Anyway I see I am perhaps not as cynical as I should be after all. It is a gut feeling I know but its one that flashes up on my radar from time to time. Having lent nearly £1bn and with a current net or repayments and recoveries book of c £400m we have had a few defaults yes, many full recoveries on those and some losses but only a few percent of the book. Lending does have defaults - its the nature of lending and some borrowers default as a matter of happenstance. Any platform that has no issues visible is likely either new or not particularly transparent. Like all lenders and investment managers and the like we have some issues to manage but that's what all investments have otherwise you'd have your cash in a bank and hope there isn't another economic crisis. But the key point is what are losses versus interest earned and in our case anyone investing in our whole loan book from day one would be sat on a very healthy return. That's just the facts, and verified independently by Brismo. All investment has risk and our aim is to mitigate that risk and by way of taking some considered risk, deliver investors a healthy return. I'm not here to stir up demand as I have seen a couple of others do as you say, just help people see through the noise into what is a healthy choice for some people for some of their investments.
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ilmoro
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Post by ilmoro on Dec 28, 2019 13:06:47 GMT
It would have been more than 5 loans (not 4 as I originally said as I forgot one has been reclassified) but most of the loans have been resolved. If there is any other balance sheet lending it has not been defined as such by RSM (all sorts of anomalies but that is current position)
Standard law may well cover the claims but a successful case and financial renumeration awarded would have to be claimed from Lendy and thus lenders would be creditors for those sums. Being accepted as creditors for contingent liabilities is merely preempting the process.
Perhaps people haven't sought advice but claims may be brought wider than Lendy the company when misselling or worse has taken place and being a creditor isn't needed for that. It may well pierce the corporate veil. Not one for me to progress or advise on but worthy of checking. I think I can safely say that the Lendy lender population are considering & investigating all options ...
I am not saying being a creditor is a requirement for the full range of options available but it will be an inevitable part of claims against Lendy.
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aju
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Post by aju on Dec 28, 2019 13:09:58 GMT
Okay so I'm just wandering through some of these discussions but this one caught my eye, I guess it was the AC mans comments, I was curious and also the title as I am in RS and Zopa and wondered why I would pull the plug if not for my own concerns regarding increasing Defaults in Zopa for us and having more recently dabbling with RS for the last year. I know I am a relatively cautious P2Per, despite having probably higher sums in Zopa/RS than I should admit to but at least I've stuck largely to what I know or worse think I know and as many who have crossed my path will probably know i'm a beat inflation and a bit on top person rather than a hard core guy. So Stuart from assetz has passed my view a few times lately, along with a few other new ones to me anyway and some who are blatantly looking for new punters. This thread and another did make me lookup assetz and on the face of it it looked like they might be one to have a closer look at. Today though I looked at some recent threads in the AC board, largely because some of the well respected players started commenting here, and I'm glad I did as it does look like my kinda person should not be looking to AC as a new option after all. (Seems to have a few issues with defaults that I did not understand at first glance - gut kicks in usually at that point) I'd like to say I am really grateful for the AC boards insights and discussions, I got a flavour of it from 3 recent threads, that all is not as rosy as it would seem over on the AC world (PF doesn't look as stable as they might, although to be fair I've never really relied on the PF funds from a head space point of view). Anyway I see I am perhaps not as cynical as I should be after all. It is a gut feeling I know but its one that flashes up on my radar from time to time. Having lent nearly £1bn and with a current net or repayments and recoveries book of c £400m we have had a few defaults yes, many full recoveries on those and some losses but only a few percent of the book. Lending does have defaults - its the nature of lending and some borrowers default as a matter of happenstance. Any platform that has no issues visible is likely either new or not particularly transparent. Like all lenders and investment managers and the like we have some issues to manage but that's what all investments have otherwise you'd have your cash in a bank and hope there isn't another economic crisis. But the key point is what are losses versus interest earned and in our case anyone investing in our whole loan book from day one would be sat on a very healthy return. That's just the facts, and verified independently by Brismo. All investment has risk and our aim is to mitigate that risk and by way of taking some considered risk, deliver investors a healthy return. I'm not here to stir up demand as I have seen a couple of others do as you say, just help people see through the noise into what is a healthy choice for some people for some of their investments. I take your points I was not trying to suggest you personally were touting for business if that was not clear then apologies. I'm sure you are as reputable as you say but one thing I have learnt along the way of being in this P2P world is that things are not always what they might appear. Having been with Zopa from those pre crisis early years and still with them, albeit wavering recently, it's been very lucrative for us and only recently that its taken a less than favourable turn (I'm still weighing things up though). I have been on this forum for less years than many so I still like to use it for investigation prior to actually taking a new turn. I am grateful for all contributions that enable me to make better decisions so I was not suggesting you are wrong in anyway just that I had noticed you and was curious. I am by my very nature somewhat cynical as you can tell and its always seen me good. The conversation seems to have moved off your initial comments and onto another platforms (Lendy) ails and I'm not party to that.
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one21
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Post by one21 on Dec 28, 2019 13:29:08 GMT
Yes I agree their contracts were massively biased towards them and I think from what I read that lenders seemed to know and accept this at the time. Our costs are very modest by comparison with an average 1.35% monitoring income on the £400m loan book and only 1% of the default interest premium with the rest of the 4% going to lenders (see clause 10, point 7 in www.assetzcapital.co.uk/terms-and-conditions#fees-interest-and-capital-repayments). Lenders knew about the monitoring fees, they werent aware of the default interest. That was contained in the loan contracts which lenders didnt see. Several years ago there was a post on the forums quoting a Lendy email revealing default charges but the wider lender base would have been unaware and at the time it wasnt really relevant as Lendy had had less defaults than AC (around the time all those AC bridging loans went south ... three of which are still running! ... which appeared the better platform then?) As I said in my first post, the devils are in the detail. AC fees in the early days were visible in the CR as the total payments being made by borrowers were stated and the fees could be calculated by comparing with the actual repayment tab, then it became opaque. Now reappeared thanks to FCA disclosure rules.
Also, didn’t Lendy amend the T&Cs in May 2018 allowing them to collect their fees in front of Lenders in the event of defaults, and to apply them retrospectively to existing loans? Most Lenders were stuck in defaulted loans by this time and had no choice but to accept them, but typically did not invest further funds - Thus escalating a downward spiral of underfunded tranches to existing and new projects.
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ilmoro
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Post by ilmoro on Dec 28, 2019 13:50:02 GMT
Lenders knew about the monitoring fees, they werent aware of the default interest. That was contained in the loan contracts which lenders didnt see. Several years ago there was a post on the forums quoting a Lendy email revealing default charges but the wider lender base would have been unaware and at the time it wasnt really relevant as Lendy had had less defaults than AC (around the time all those AC bridging loans went south ... three of which are still running! ... which appeared the better platform then?) As I said in my first post, the devils are in the detail. AC fees in the early days were visible in the CR as the total payments being made by borrowers were stated and the fees could be calculated by comparing with the actual repayment tab, then it became opaque. Now reappeared thanks to FCA disclosure rules.
Also, didn’t Lendy amend the T&Cs in May 2018 allowing them to collect their fees in front of Lenders in the event of defaults, and to apply them retrospectively to existing loans? Most Lenders were stuck in defaulted loans by this time and had no choice but to accept them, but typically did not invest further funds - Thus escalating a downward spiral of underfunded tranches to existing projects and new loans. They did amend the T&Cs to prioritise fees & interest ahead of capital but technically they always had the discretion to do that (There was no waterfall in the old t&cs so payment priority wasnt defined and always at Lendy discretion - the assumption was that they were distributed in a certain way - the new t&cs were probably required to clarify the situation by the FCA - the discretion remained and was applied) The t&C waterfall isnt in effect.
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Post by stuartassetzcapital on Dec 28, 2019 14:19:00 GMT
Leave it with me. There is so much misinformation and so many unfortunate experiences with poorly set up platforms that I think it best we issue a detailed statement of how we are set up. Our public wind down plan should then contain that if not already.
Leave it with me for a short while.
Thank you to everyone for explaining some of the thinking about the sector at present. That is my primary interest here on this part of the board. I believe the quality players are different to the problems seen to date and whilst an easy option would be to just move to Institutional origination only and avoid this type of engagement that would let down the tens of thousands of investors who need the income we generate for their own benefit. I’m happy to engage and to continue to support those who wish to make use of us.
We are on a mission here and no one said it would be easy to create a new asset class but it is a challenge worth taking for all of us to seek to beat the situations and returns seen in cash, shares, pensions, funds and the like over recent decades.
I wish everyone a happy and prosperous New Year !
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angrysaveruk
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Post by angrysaveruk on Dec 28, 2019 14:38:14 GMT
I always got the impression that AC was one of the more professionally run P2P platforms. If I return to P2P in a couple of years I will probably invest with them, especially if they are staying clear of large scale business loans.
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aju
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Post by aju on Dec 28, 2019 18:03:36 GMT
SNIP ... Our balance sheet and the rest of the consolidated accounts are available at Companies house for ACL around today for the Mar 2019 year end. Unfortunately, issuing accounts in 3 months is unlikely due to auditor requirements as they need time to do the work and carry out detailed audits. We have no plan to issue interim accounts at present but would consider it in the future. Three months might be on the tight side but publishing accounts a couple of days before the statutory 9 month deadline is not a good look. I accept that RS and Zopa delay filing until the last days as well sometimes but that’s not a great standard to follow. FCH published 30/06/2019 interims results via website and RNS on 8th August. That’s 39 days for interim financial statements, which have been reviewed but not audited and across multiple geographies. FCH published 31/12/2018 final results via website and RNS on 7th March 2019. That’s 66 days for final results for the year ended 31 December 2018 that have been extracted from the audited financial statements of FCH, again over multiple geographies. I stand by my statement that any P2P organisation expecting to retain the confidence of lenders should be publishing timely financial statement that allow lenders half a chance of forming a reasonably informed judgement of platform risk. Robust wind down plans are for me secondary to the robustness of the platform. For me to retain confidence in a platform I want to be firstly comfortable that the risk of a wind down plan being activated are extremely low and likely to remain low for years to come. That confidence will not be easily retained if the most recent financial statements are between 9 months old and 21 months old! I'm not sure but just out of interest why would you provide accounts months before the deadline if you get it on time anyway - is anyone going to look at this before the deadline anyway. Do companies tend to do this on time anyway. I'm sure I've seen quite a few companies over the years who don't get their filings in on time if at all. Mind you they are probably not big companies though. Is there actually a fine for being late and if so is it that much. That said I do agree with you that being late if one has not been late in the past might be an indicator or two but there may be legitimate reasons such as a changed auditor/accountant who is less familiar or more thorough perhaps. Edit: I'm guessing ACL is Assetz Capital Lending and FCH is Funding Circle Holdings perhaps can we have abbreviations added to the Glossary pages perhaps if I have these wrong.
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ilmoro
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Post by ilmoro on Dec 28, 2019 19:38:17 GMT
AIUI the rules covering disclosure & transparency are much tighter for listed companies. An annual report has to be published within four months of financial year end so FCH have no choice but to put their accounts out 5 months earlier than the requirements of Companies House. An interim report is required within 3 months. I would assume that there is a corresponding cost to the reduced timescale.
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aju
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Post by aju on Dec 29, 2019 0:10:44 GMT
Given we are all posting on a thread titled “Time to pull the plug on P2P?”, it is highly evident and warranted that the confidence levels in P2P are extremely low. Given a choice between accounts publishing that gives - as little disclosure and as little transparency as late as possible, vs - as much helpful disclosure and as much helpful transparency as early as possible then the latter is more likely to gain and retain my confidence in a platform. Yes there’s a cost in doing things to best in class standards compared to doing the minimum required to get away with it. But if a platform wants to be considered as one of the big, robust, trustworthy players in financial services then it should be prepared to make that investment in best in class financial reporting. If it’s happy to be fairly or unfairly lumped in with cowboys and failures then it can stick to scraping through on the minimum required which is too low a bar for my liking. [ aju FCH is the LSE ticker for Funding Circle Holdings]. Thx, hopefully you poked the relevant new abbreviations into the Glossary.  One thing that is interesting I think is that we are all assuming a number of things. 1. We are all right in that we think there are issues. 2. That a lot of us knows the repercussions of not presenting the accounts etc on time. 3. A good many people are reading all our musings/concerns on these threads and taking notice. 4. etc etc etc Hopefully most of us on here are intelligent enough to realise that, even though there are quite a few people on these and other forums, discussing similar concerns, that it's not probably going to make that much of a difference to the platforms if we are being realistic. As a little anecdote from recent CS experience of Ratesetter. In the last month or so I noticed RS was still declaring that it had 5* reviews score on TrustPilot (TP) - in fact at the bottom of every page on the member RS pages has been stating this probably for years. Thing is though I had recently stumbled onto TP at the end of October and noticed that whilst its score was still "excellent", as a result of the increased negative responses to the screen changes it had made the number of bad reviews had increased quite a bit. In fact the score had dropped to 4.5* not a great deal but hey the regulators are breathing down the necks of all the P2P sites. So I set about bringing it to RS's attention. In my first email I even mentioned that the regulators might be interested to know that could in effect be deemed to be misleading existing customers who notice this score. So guess what, their first response was polite and agreed to notify the "relevant" team!. For me that was a triage response - push it upwards and hope I accept it. After 2 weeks I asked CS how things were going and this time CC'd the email to Rhydian Lewis. Again a similar triage response but gave an indication of further escalation - still no response after a further 3 weeks so I again asked for an update and emphasised that in my eyes they had already taken nearly 6 weeks and my "Regs clock" was ticking on. Again I copied into Rhydian Lewis - he must have noticed these by now as I gave it am unusual snappy title. This time they suggest they were going to push it to a senior management team and now also push it to their complaints dept, notifying me that RS had 8 weeks to sort it out. I bounced that one back immediately and stated they had already had nearly 6 weeks and I wasn't going to allow a further 8 weeks to elapse. The complaints team came back with a similar answer and also thought they would have 8 weeks to resolve. I pushed back on that. I had a 2nd response from complaints who had now noticed that I wasn't working to their timescales but to the ones I had self imposed in the very first email I sent. The person in complaints seemed to come back within a day to uphold my so called complaint and also commit to making the relevant changes sometime in the new year!. Interestingly I stated that I would accept that for the time being but asked when the update would be made so I could diary it to check that it would happen. They said they couldn't provide an exact date but it would be done in the very first update in the new year. I cheekily told them how I thought it would be a simple fix after all its one single graphic repeated endless times on all pages but thought i'll wait until the new year. Interestingly the very next day after my last email - again copied into RL but still no comment from them - it was in fact fixed and is now correct. It's not a great change but at least they eventually realised that it might not look that great if the regs were to get a complaint about a potential misleading part of their site they should have noticed and taiken steps to fix a lot quicker than they were. A bit off topic for this plug pull thread but RS and in my view not always on the same wavelength as we on these forums might be and sometimes they need a bit of a gentle shove in the right direction. In the case of Zopa especially and RS more recently I think they do want to be responsive but sometimes things are not always as severe as we might think. I personally am concerned about P2P going forwards but in my case I think I will just reduce my exposure a bit over the next few weeks and see how things pan out. I'm not expecting Z and RS to be the first to fall by the wayside if at all but never say never - Woolworths are still on my mind for want of an example of where things can end up, Not the worst but not one many would have had WW in their sights in the weeks before they fell from favour.
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Post by Undecided on Dec 30, 2019 12:46:44 GMT
Okay so I'm just wandering through some of these discussions but this one caught my eye, I guess it was the AC mans comments, I was curious and also the title as I am in RS and Zopa and wondered why I would pull the plug if not for my own concerns regarding increasing Defaults in Zopa for us and having more recently dabbling with RS for the last year. I know I am a relatively cautious P2Per, despite having probably higher sums in Zopa/RS than I should admit to but at least I've stuck largely to what I know or worse think I know and as many who have crossed my path will probably know i'm a beat inflation and a bit on top person rather than a hard core guy. So Stuart from assetz has passed my view a few times lately, along with a few other new ones to me anyway and some who are blatantly looking for new punters. This thread and another did make me lookup assetz and on the face of it it looked like they might be one to have a closer look at. Today though I looked at some recent threads in the AC board, largely because some of the well respected players started commenting here, and I'm glad I did as it does look like my kinda person should not be looking to AC as a new option after all. (Seems to have a few issues with defaults that I did not understand at first glance - gut kicks in usually at that point) I'd like to say I am really grateful for the AC boards insights and discussions, I got a flavour of it from 3 recent threads, that all is not as rosy as it would seem over on the AC world (PF doesn't look as stable as they might, although to be fair I've never really relied on the PF funds from a head space point of view). Anyway I see I am perhaps not as cynical as I should be after all. It is a gut feeling I know but its one that flashes up on my radar from time to time. Having lent nearly £1bn and with a current net or repayments and recoveries book of c £400m we have had a few defaults yes, many full recoveries on those and some losses but only a few percent of the book. Lending does have defaults - its the nature of lending and some borrowers default as a matter of happenstance. Any platform that has no issues visible is likely either new or not particularly transparent. Like all lenders and investment managers and the like we have some issues to manage but that's what all investments have otherwise you'd have your cash in a bank and hope there isn't another economic crisis. But the key point is what are losses versus interest earned and in our case anyone investing in our whole loan book from day one would be sat on a very healthy return. That's just the facts, and verified independently by Brismo. All investment has risk and our aim is to mitigate that risk and by way of taking some considered risk, deliver investors a healthy return. I'm not here to stir up demand as I have seen a couple of others do as you say, just help people see through the noise into what is a healthy choice for some people for some of their investments. Stuart, you say you have had some losses, which is what I assumed must be the case, but one of your colleagues stated to me in an email dated the 11/12/19 that "Assetz Capital have not recorded a loss on capital"! You need to make sure your staff give out accurate information or it makes me loose trust in AC. I was trying to find out my actual return (after losses) on my manual account investment. It would be great if you could make this information available along with predicted future returns as some other platforms do.
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Post by davee39 on Dec 30, 2019 13:22:24 GMT
I have a tiny holding in an Assetz loan which defaulted in April 2015. In January 2019 Assetz advised that was no prospect of further recoveries on this loan, which remains open and showing as a balance on my account. An update regarding writing off is due in Feb 2020. While this loan is relatively small there are several large loans which are problematic and look like producing substantial losses. The closed accounts look like suffering losses which could not be covered by the provision fund, even it it ever tried to pay out.
I am pulling out of all P2P, current low interest rates make this too risky for non professional investors.
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ashtondav
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Post by ashtondav on Dec 30, 2019 14:33:03 GMT
Having lent nearly £1bn and with a current net or repayments and recoveries book of c £400m we have had a few defaults yes, many full recoveries on those and some losses but only a few percent of the book. Lending does have defaults - its the nature of lending and some borrowers default as a matter of happenstance. Any platform that has no issues visible is likely either new or not particularly transparent. Like all lenders and investment managers and the like we have some issues to manage but that's what all investments have otherwise you'd have your cash in a bank and hope there isn't another economic crisis. But the key point is what are losses versus interest earned and in our case anyone investing in our whole loan book from day one would be sat on a very healthy return. That's just the facts, and verified independently by Brismo. All investment has risk and our aim is to mitigate that risk and by way of taking some considered risk, deliver investors a healthy return. I'm not here to stir up demand as I have seen a couple of others do as you say, just help people see through the noise into what is a healthy choice for some people for some of their investments. Stuart, you say you have had some losses, which is what I assumed must be the case, but one of your colleagues stated to me in an email dated the 11/12/19 that "Assetz Capital have not recorded a loss on capital"! You need to make sure your staff give out accurate information or it makes me loose trust in AC. I was trying to find out my actual return (after losses) on my manual account investment. It would be great if you could make this information available along with predicted future returns as some other platforms do. I interpreted that as a loss for lenders. In other words no lender had lost capital in their loan portfolio, and that overall no loss of capital had been experienced. I would have thought it self evident that some loans make losses - but i may be wrong (often the case!)
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Post by zzr600 on Jan 2, 2020 14:46:49 GMT
Time to pull the plug on P2P? Yes. Lenders take on all the risk, and owners of platforms enrich themselves at their expense. A failed platform costs the owners nothing but can wipe out lenders.
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benaj
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Post by benaj on Jan 2, 2020 16:37:41 GMT
Time to pull the plug on P2P? Yes. Lenders take on all the risk, and owners of platforms enrich themselves at their expense. A failed platform costs the owners nothing but can wipe out lenders. So, how many platforms are in the Red in 2017 & 2018? Ratesetter is working towards profitability according press releast in Oct 2019 www.ratesetter.com/siteassets/media/2019results.pdfThe truth is, even some banks are struggle to make a profit in 2019. Barclays, RBS, Virgin Money, Co-op bank, Metro bank, Atom bank, Monzo have not made profit this year, but money is protected by FSCS cover.
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