Assetz Capital and RBS

mikes1531 - in the same position as yourself (apart from the overdue bridging loans) although I do have some accrued interest due but that's a maybe situation as I've mentally written it off. If my loans do settle on time and it looks as though one could be settling early then I've committed as much as I'm comfortable with in the AM. Also have a couple of targets set for upcoming loans but even if I did receive 100% of target and of course assuming they do go live on time, there would still be surplus funds floating around. So I may need to look for a new home for these until the deal flow improves.

I don't see that paying referral fees to RBoS necessarily would impact investor returns in comparison to the current situation.  Right now, AC pay referral fees to 'introducers'.  If, instead, they pay those fees to RBoS, then ISTM that there should be no impact on investors' returns.

Or is there something I'm not understanding?

Thanks for flagging this - just to confirm, there are no referral fees to be paid by either side.

On behalf of Andrew Holgate.

Reassuring to hear (& reasonable given the mandatory nature – implied if perhaps not yet formally legislated? - of the scheme).

FC’s referral scheme with Santander was announced last June. If a savvy FC investor here could tell us something re the platform’s deal flow increase from say May/Jun last year to end of 2014/now-ish that might be a useful pointer to what we can reasonably expect to get on AC over the summer from the RBS deal. Even if the referral pie will be split across 2 platforms (& perhaps 5 in future it would seem from the RBS press release). Any thoughts/guesstimates welcome.

The RBS release mentioned that all referrals would be made to both AC & FC, which suggested fees would be waived (or would have had to have been agreed with both platforms beforehand). The latter whilst possible was perhaps trickier to manage (& if mandatory platforms could have effectively bid it down to zero anyway simply by refusing any fees..), in any case the wider context is banks are in effect happily vacating a lending area in favour of more succulent pastures following Basel3 regs, as eloquently explained in another thread recently. Better to leave graciously & show you’re doing your bit for British SME’s (whilst you cash in on B3).

One thing not clear is whether RBS will retain some form of monitoring / right to reconsider referrals further down the line if they believe this could be appropriate. That could be used to open up an auction of referrals so to speak (whether spurious or not) similar to the scenario you described in say 6-12 months. This at a time when more platforms might be better positioned to tout for it (& existing referees such as AC may be more susceptible to bid more generously if only to keep their deal flow & cover the larger overheads they will have in place to deal with it). So your scepticism is probably not entirely misplaced..

Famous saying in Italy “chi pensa male fa peccato ma spesso ci indovina” (he who has bad thoughts commits a sin but is often right)