I don't have anything in LW anymore. Perhaps there is less than 1p sitting somewhere.
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Nick Harding (Fluro Platform Ltd T/A Lending Works )
Nov 8, 2023, 15:23 GMT
Dear xxxxx
I’m getting in touch to let you know we’re making changes to your terms and conditions and to update you on the progress of our plans to wind down our peer-to-peer (P2P) investment product.
In this email, I’ll explain what changes we’re making, why we’re making them and what it means for your investment.
Changes we are making
When I wrote to you in December 2021, I explained that we had taken the difficult decision to close our P2P investment product to new business. We’ve since been closely monitoring the platform’s performance, as well as the wider savings and investments markets and believe that in the current interest rate environment, suitable alternatives exist for investors that you may wish to take advantage of. Some of these alternatives may have greater liquidity and the security of Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) protection.
As we are committed to delivering the best outcomes for our customers, we have decided to close the P2P product entirely and return all investor funds. Fluro Capital Limited, will facilitate this by purchasing your remaining loan portfolio. You’ll receive your investment balance back, in full, plus interest paid up until the date of purchase, and you will not pay any of the fees you’d normally pay for selling your loans.
To support this process, we are making the following changes to your Investor Terms and Conditions:
Clause 25 of the Lender Platform Terms and Conditions includes a new ‘right of termination’ that permits us to terminate our agreement with you and your Membership of Lending Works in order to complete a sale of the entire retail investor book on behalf of all Lending Works retail investors and return your funds to you. You can see the updated terms in full here with the new wording shown in bold.
Clause 18 of the ISA Terms and Conditions includes the same new ‘right of termination’ that permits us to terminate our agreement with you and your Membership of Lending Works in order to complete a sale of the entire retail investor book on behalf of all Lending Works retail investors and return your funds to you. You can see the updated terms in full here with the new wording shown in bold.
These changes will apply from 8 December 2023 and we intend to complete the sale by 6 February 2024 at the latest. We’ll be in touch again before then to confirm timings.
Additionally, we have turned off the ‘Quick Withdraw’ and ‘Auto Lend’ functionality. This is to ensure that you are not charged for selling loans or withdrawing funds when you will shortly receive the full value of your investment without any charges being applied. If you currently have funds in your Lending Works Wallet you can still withdraw the full amount in the usual way.
If you are an ISA customer and want to maintain the tax-free wrapper on your account, you will need to arrange a transfer to another ISA provider. We’ll be in touch again before 8 December to confirm the process. Alternatively, we can return these funds to the bank account linked to your Lending Works account. However, please remember that to retain the tax-free ISA wrapper on your investment, funds will need to be transferred to another ISA provider rather than transferred to your nominated bank account.
If you have a balance of less than £0.01, we will aggregate this with other balances of less than £0.01 to donate to charity.
Why we are making these changes
Back in 2012 when we founded Lending Works, we did so with a belief that we could provide a better product for both people looking to borrow money and people who had funds to invest. However, as described above, we believe there are other products on the market that could serve you better in the longer term.
Please be assured that we have informed our primary regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) of our decision and the changes we are making. We will be providing updates to the FCA throughout this process to ensure that the process is executed in the best way possible for customers and the wider markets.
What this means for you
The purchase of retail investor-funded loans will happen in stages, starting on 8 December 2023 and completing no later than 6 February 2024. You will be notified by email when the purchase has been completed and the funds are on their way to your Lending Works Wallet. Invested money will continue to earn interest up until that point (accrued interest) and will be added to the value of the loans you currently have invested. You will receive your full investment balance, plus the accrued interest.
Once all funds have been returned to your Lending Works Wallet, we will transfer the full balance (including any funds already sitting in that Wallet) to the designated bank account linked to your Lending Works account.
If you are an ISA customer, once the purchase of your loan portfolio has completed, you can elect to withdraw your funds to your bank account or request an ISA transfer to a new provider. Please remember that to retain your tax-free wrapper, your ISA must be transferred to another ISA manager and not returned to your bank account.
What you need to do
You do not need to take any immediate action. Over the next two weeks we will be running checks to ensure that we hold correct bank details for our retail investor customers, to ensure that we can return non-ISA funds to you as efficiently as possible. We’ll be in touch again by 8 December to confirm any action you need to take; however, if you know that the bank details in your Lending Works account are not correct, please feel free to contact us sooner and we will update them for you.
We have added a ‘questions and answers’ section to the Lending Works website, which should help with any questions you might have. If you need to get in touch, please call our Customer Service Team on 0207 096 8512 or email cs@lendingworks.co.uk.
While I hope you will welcome this update and agree that the action we are taking is in our customers’ best interests, please feel free to contact us if you have any questions and you can also see our complaints procedure here.
Finally, I’d like to thank you for supporting Lending Works. I’m proud of what we have achieved over the past 10 years.
Kind regards,
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Nick Harding
CEO & co-founder
Visit your Lending Works dashboard at
www.lendingworks.co.ukLending Works is a trading name of Fluro Platform Limited. Fluro Platform Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (firm reference number 723151). Fluro Platform Limited's registered office is 55 Old Broad Street, London, EC2M 1RX and its company number is 8302549
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