Zopa Have Proven Themselves again?

Ask again in a few months time.....  but they're certainly the most experienced.

They are the oldest of the P2P domain, in the uk at least. I also am an early adopter and to be honest the covid-19 situation may be survivable but since the last 12 months has been one of steadily increasing defaults - we had quite a large portfolio of £10 loans and also had made a large sale to furnish RS ISA's early last fin year so defaults are to be expected I feel - but over the last 8-9 months they became more and more a situation of nearly wiping out ones monthly returns. So we have taken the decision to bail out of all non protected loans not that PF is a given either. The defaults effect was getting too edgy before covid-19 hit but recently seeing a very large percentage of covid-19 fall out (arrangements increased from 8 in feb to over 400 in Mar and April and Zopa is using the arrangement entity for the relief where p-0eople need it) I decided that it's time to beat a somewhat hasty but far too slow for comfort retreat. 

For us, having been in Z since the start, and considering ourselves understanding how everything P2P worked, not losing any actual capital but getting close to it even before cv gave some concern. I made the decision slightly late on 17th March and it actually took until nearly the end of April to even start selling anything. Additionally the MRA is quite a hit but even with that and the built up returns over previous years we are well safe Capital wise. I did consider just removing capital funds and leaving the interest earnt behind but other than leaving our PF covered loans which are now in 3 figures we are getting the funds back into a safer place albeit with much lower returns.

I do agree the very recent issues with RS and their PF cover reductions meant I have applied to remove funds there too but only got them in yesterday so I reckon that might be quite a wait but hey ho. Perhaps things will improve over the next month or two economy/business wise who knows but I'm not that well endowed with funds that I want to take the chances anymore. To be fair if Mrs Aju hadn't been banging on about the no fscs covered money at the start I may have kept them going longer. What with the dump in overall interest rates its getting harder and harder to defend against Inflation Tax - although I've a feeling that will be down too over the next few months as well. time will tell. That's our position and many on here will know that I always worked on a beat inflation and a point or 2 on top with our lending so If we come out of the bubble relatively unscathed then we'll be ok. 

I'm guessing you have similar to our experience. I've attached a graphic of our loan stats as of yesterday in our ISA that we are bailing out of now. Unfortunately the covid arrangements cannot be sold not sure about all arrangements. They do represent quite a bit of funds that are stuck.

Indeed Zopa's website is to be polite rubbish...   (Edit : In a formal complaint to Zopa about the issue I did explicitly use the word rubbish in reference to their website)

For the last 4 months and ongoing Zopa have to email to me my cvs file loan books (at the end of each working day) because it is impossible (due to time outs) to down load it (the back paging trick does not work incidentally I have tried many many times). It does cover just over 29,000 micro loan entries...

Zopa tell me it is due to the size of my loan book. I cannot even view the summary pages of my loan book and indeed the website regularly bumps me out to the login screen when I try to withdraw (access my money button) albeit that issue worked today. 

Zopa did say the issue will be fixed when they roll out the "next generation" website which is meant to happen when they roll out the Bank at some indeterminate point in the future.. But in the interim I have to have the files sent by a daily email from a nice customer services chap...

That is another reason I am exiting , Zopa tell me it works for investors with smaller loan books.. Which is good to hear.

Indeed I want others to continue with Zopa so I can sell my loans to them (with MRA's)..

For me its still ticking over, interest is very low now but better then the banks.  I'm not reinvesting and gradually pulling money out to re-balance things, a way better option than selling out...  I still have faith in all my investments and dont expect to make anything over the next few months but things will get back to normal and p2p will thrive and zopa will provide steady returns in the future...

wapping35
I would also check (when you can) for data inconsistencies.
Check whether your current total is different when comparing the dashboard with the current statement.

I had that quite a bit today but I just used a link page to the items i wanted E.g.

secure2.zopa.com/lender/lending_summary/standard to link to the Invest account summary page

secure2.zopa.com/lender/lending_summary/isa to goto ISA summary page

I have a list of all the relevant pages and so whichever one I want I usually am still able to get round the 500 errors, although last night around midnight it was particularly slow and failing to even get past the dashboard at the 500 error I just click the link I want and it generally works although the LB is sometimes way more problematic as you say. 

All of this is using up to date google chrome on a windows 7 PC - I can't be rsed with tablet/mobile access for the kind of detail I need though.

One caveat from above if you use seperate links it will break Zopa's rather cumbersome cookie maps will usually force a double login sequence.  The way to ensure cookies are fully reset before logging in is to cycle round the Top Left "Zopa" button and the top right right "My Account" button a couple of times always works for me although why Zopa cannot seem to reset the cookies in a more logical manner is beyond me.

I agree 1000% that on a good day Zopa is not that great at website flow design and less so at website control skills.