Mousey
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Post by Mousey on Aug 15, 2020 15:33:54 GMT
Assetz should be clear with their investors:
- Did Assetz receive this letter from the FCA?
- What exactly is their plan for the uninvested cash in the Access Accounts?
- Exactly what commitments have been made on behalf of investors for this cash to be used?
- Can Assetz confirm they will "return client money balances which are unlikely to be reinvested in the short term"?
EDITS BELOW: Responses from later in the thread to keep the first post a source of all the pertinent information.
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The letter "was sent to businesses that provide a non-discretionary investment service or those that act on behalf of clients."
The Access Accounts are as non-discretionary as they come and Assetz act as Agent for the loan agreements on behalf of clients.
A non-discretionary investment manager is defined by the FCA as "a person who, acting only on behalf of a client , manages designated investments in an account..."
Designated investments include P2P Agreements =====================================================================================
For the avoidance of doubt I have asked them the above questions and no answer has been forthcoming.
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Approx 11.8% of the access account holdings is not lent out to borrowers but is held as uninvested cash. Assetz have prevented it from being withdrawn. It is exactly this type of uninvested cash that the FCA wish to see returned to consumers. The Access Accounts hold £217m according to the totals provided by Assetz on the relevant investor pages. 11.8% of that is some £25.6m that could be returned to investors (incidentally Assetz are presumable funding the £2,500 in daily interest to service this amount).
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Post by davee39 on Aug 15, 2020 15:54:09 GMT
Assetz are not an investment company.
Your question is, however, perfectly valid.
If you want to know what Assetz are doing with uninvested cash, perhaps you could ask them, I'm sure we would all like to know.
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Mousey
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Post by Mousey on Aug 15, 2020 16:06:58 GMT
Assetz are not an investment company. Your question is, however, perfectly valid. If you want to know what Assetz are doing with uninvested cash, perhaps you could ask them, I'm sure we would all like to know. "It was sent to businesses that provide a non-discretionary investment service or those that act on behalf of clients."
The Access Accounts are as non-discretionary as they come and Assetz act as Agent for the loan agreements on behalf of clients.
Also indeed I have asked them. No answer has been forthcoming.
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Post by popeye on Aug 15, 2020 17:00:12 GMT
I think our money stuck in the access accounts isn't uninvested cash. Unfortunately, it remains very much invested in a basket of loans.
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Mousey
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Post by Mousey on Aug 15, 2020 17:07:41 GMT
I think our money stuck in the access accounts isn't uninvested cash. Unfortunately, it remains very much invested in a basket of loans. (As of 6pm today) Approx 11.8% of the access account holdings is not lent out to borrowers but is held as uninvested cash. Assetz have prevented it from being withdrawn.
It is exactly this type of uninvested cash that the FCA wish to see returned to consumers.
The Access Accounts hold £217m according to the totals provided by Assetz on the relevant investor pages.
11.8% of that is some £25.6m that could be returned to investors (incidentally Assetz are presumable funding the £2,500 in daily interest to service this amount).
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r00lish67
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Post by r00lish67 on Aug 15, 2020 17:25:43 GMT
I think our money stuck in the access accounts isn't uninvested cash. Unfortunately, it remains very much invested in a basket of loans. Approx 11.8% of the access account holdings is not lent out to borrowers but is held as uninvested cash. Assetz have prevented it from being withdrawn.
It is exactly this type of uninvested cash that the FCA wish to see returned to consumers.
The Access Accounts hold £217m according to the totals provided by Assetz on the relevant investor pages.
11.8% of that is some £25.6m that could be returned to investors (incidentally Assetz are presumable funding the £2,500 in daily interest to service this amount).
Of course some/much of this cash is earmarked to complete their commitments to ongoing existing projects (rather than new ones), which is understandable. Not to say they're off the hook though - have we seen detail of the outstanding planned commitment versus cash reserves? I think that's quite important, so we can understand exactly where we're headed in the QAA now given that new loans are on hiatus. I don't necessarily feel the need to demand our cash back if it's going to be detrimental to the overall investment performance. The good news (probably) is that that outstanding planned commitment number should be decreasing all of the time. Firstly because some loans are being refinanced away or completed, and secondly because (as with the loan I just happen to be looking at right now -1088), in some cases all future tranche drawdowns are being funded by CBILS and should no longer be a burden on the access accounts. I do think though that we are at the point where QAA investors deserve some further (simplified, collated) information in this area, so we can get at least a vague idea of how much actual cash is likely to be released to investors and when. As it stands, I have no idea what the delta is between spare cash in the QAA and forthcoming tranche requirements. Anyone else know? I imagine it would still look like a rather scary discrepancy at the moment (too much need for too little cash), but again, that may be misleading if there are ongoing efforts to refinance loans elsewhere and separately to restructure them into institutional CBILS loans on an ongoing basis. That could very quickly tip the balance back, with multi-£m reqs disappearing overnight. edit: reading your post again, I'm basically parroting it Mousey . Oh well. I agree, anyway!
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Mousey
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Post by Mousey on Aug 15, 2020 17:35:27 GMT
Of course some/much of this cash is earmarked to complete their commitments to ongoing existing projects (rather than new ones), which is understandable. Whilst it's understandable I don't accept the result of your argument - for the simple reason that Assetz could choose to never reimburse any money ever again!
Unfortunately Assetz have not been transparent about this in the slightest. Assetz do have the ability to allocate future allocations to the respective loans and have chosen not to do so.
One would expect a professional and diligent investment company acting as an agent could allocate such funds the moment they become available within the accounts to avoid the type of scenario you envisage.
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r00lish67
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Post by r00lish67 on Aug 15, 2020 17:40:50 GMT
Of course some/much of this cash is earmarked to complete their commitments to ongoing existing projects (rather than new ones), which is understandable. Whilst it's understandable I don't accept the result of your argument - for the simple reason that Assetz could choose to never reimburse any money ever again!
Unfortunately Assetz have not been transparent about this in the slightest. Assetz do have the ability to allocate future allocations to the respective loans and have chosen not to do so.
One would expect a professional and diligent investment company acting as an agent could allocate such funds the moment they become available within the accounts to avoid the type of scenario you envisage.
I'm not sure that we aren't arguing for the same thing Mousey ? First, transparency. Second, our investment returned in good order i.e. without damaging it through leaving half-finished shells for a firesale. As part of that, our cash should be returned as soon as is possible (on a basis that is transparent to all). Or are you of the view that they should be returning it all immediately? But what then of the remaining tranche requirements that, left unfulfilled, could impact our investment?
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Mousey
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Post by Mousey on Aug 15, 2020 17:52:34 GMT
I'm not sure we're not arguing for the same thing Mousey ? First, transparency. Second, our investment returned in good order (i.e. without damaging it through leaving half-finished shells for a firesale. As part of that, our cash should be returned as soon as is possible (on a basis that is transparent to all). Or are you of the view that they should be returning it all immediately? But what then of the remaining tranche requirements that, left unfulfilled, could impact our investment? I'm arguing for exactly what the FCA "consider(s) is good practice in this period for firms to communicate with clients about increased client money balances to ascertain whether these should be returned to them or continue to be held by the firm to facilitate further investment in the short term."
I also advocate that where a consumer instructs an agent to return unallocated cash then the agent should obey that instruction. Clearly though if loan #12345 requires cash of £220k in September 2020 and cash within the Access Accounts are earmarked for that purpose then it should not be shown on the Account statements as unallocated. To do so is misleading and inaccurate.
The FCA have made it clear they with firms holding unallocated cash that they should return it to consumers.
ETA: I also advocate that where a retail investor instructs Assetz not to enter into any more loan contracts on their behalf that instruction should also be respected.
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r00lish67
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Post by r00lish67 on Aug 15, 2020 18:01:44 GMT
I'm not sure we're not arguing for the same thing Mousey ? First, transparency. Second, our investment returned in good order (i.e. without damaging it through leaving half-finished shells for a firesale. As part of that, our cash should be returned as soon as is possible (on a basis that is transparent to all). Or are you of the view that they should be returning it all immediately? But what then of the remaining tranche requirements that, left unfulfilled, could impact our investment? I'm arguing for exactly what the FCA "consider(s) is good practice in this period for firms to communicate with clients about increased client money balances to ascertain whether these should be returned to them or continue to be held by the firm to facilitate further investment in the short term."
I also advocate that where a consumer instructs an agent to return unallocated cash then the agent should obey that instruction. Clearly though if loan #12345 requires cash of £220k in September 2020 and cash within the Access Accounts are earmarked for that purpose then it should not be shown on the Account statements as unallocated. To do so is misleading and inaccurate.
The FCA have made it clear they with firms holding unallocated cash that they should return it to consumers.
I totally agree with your first sentence. Re: the 2nd: So, if Assetz allocated that spare cash into future tranche requirements, would that be ok with you? The thing is, given that future tranche requirements are all over the shop what with refinances/CBILS/whatever, that would probably look very volatile/messy even if Assetz could show it. I think we're on the same page with the basic point of "what exactly are you doing with this cash you're holding onto, what is the plan?". After that, well, personally I guess I'm reserving judgement. When we know what exactly is going on, it'll be much easier to take an informed view as to the speed with which Assetz should be returning that uninvested balance.
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Mousey
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Post by Mousey on Aug 15, 2020 18:13:59 GMT
Re: the 2nd: So, if Assetz allocated that spare cash into future tranche requirements, would that be ok with you? The thing is, given that future tranche requirements are all over the shop what with refinances/CBILS/whatever, that would probably look very volatile/messy even if Assetz could show it. Well it can't be both unallocated cash and earmarked for future loans can it? That appears to be what Assetz are claiming here. The admin associated with that is not of my concern unfortunately.
What I submit is that it is entirly legitimate (and I have no doubt lawful) for a consumer to instruct their agent that no more contracts should be entered into on their behalf with their money.
The FCA appear to be on a similar page instructing such agents to return such money.
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jcb208
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Post by jcb208 on Aug 15, 2020 18:24:07 GMT
Ratesetter contacted me asking what I wanted to do with funds held in my ISA holding account so they seem to be taking note
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r00lish67
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Post by r00lish67 on Aug 15, 2020 18:25:16 GMT
Re: the 2nd: So, if Assetz allocated that spare cash into future tranche requirements, would that be ok with you? The thing is, given that future tranche requirements are all over the shop what with refinances/CBILS/whatever, that would probably look very volatile/messy even if Assetz could show it. Well it can't be both unallocated cash and earmarked for future loans can it? That appears to be what Assetz are claiming here. The admin associated with that is not of my concern unfortunately.
What I submit is that it is entirly legitimate (and I have no doubt lawful) for a consumer to instruct their agent that no more contracts should be entered into on their behalf with their money.
The FCA appear to be on a similar page instructing such agents to return such money.
When you say "no more contracts" is your interpretation of that in this context just brand new loans or also new tranches of existing loans?
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Mousey
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Post by Mousey on Aug 15, 2020 18:33:13 GMT
Well it can't be both unallocated cash and earmarked for future loans can it? That appears to be what Assetz are claiming here. The admin associated with that is not of my concern unfortunately.
What I submit is that it is entirly legitimate (and I have no doubt lawful) for a consumer to instruct their agent that no more contracts should be entered into on their behalf with their money.
The FCA appear to be on a similar page instructing such agents to return such money.
When you say "no more contracts" is your interpretation of that in this context just brand new loans or also new tranches of existing loans? All new lending not covered by existing contractual commitments. If that includes new tranches on existing loans then so be it.
Of course if Assetz have allocated £220k to a specific loan then it should be shown as allocated.
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ilmoro
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Post by ilmoro on Aug 15, 2020 19:35:17 GMT
Guess it all depends on how you define invested but I suspect that it is invested in the AA as it is receiving interest as such. Same goes for Loanpad.
I suspect the FCA is referring to non-earning cash sat in client accounts not that invested in a product whether or not it is specifically invested in loans. Cash is held in the AA as part of the product operation, if the FCA means accounts like the AA then they are effective telling AC to wind the account down.
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