debeast
(o)(o)
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Post by debeast on Feb 11, 2014 7:55:26 GMT
"Anyway, my toe-dipping funds are still 0% loaned so presumably they are waiting for borrowers"
How do we find that out? My little toe went in last week, and all I can see is the fact that the money is there for 18 months and matures on 29.1.2015 . The rest of my left foot might be getting wet later this week.
Account summary > Portfolio Breakdown> On Loan (third column from the right) shows the amount and percentage lent. In my case they all went immediately to the amount and 100% Didn't notice that but now i've looked. A small amount i placed in at the end of last week on and 18 month one is showing 0%. Presumably i'm not receiving interest on this money until it is loaned out?
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Post by wellesleyco on Feb 11, 2014 8:50:29 GMT
Account summary > Portfolio Breakdown> On Loan (third column from the right) shows the amount and percentage lent. In my case they all went immediately to the amount and 100% Didn't notice that but now i've looked. A small amount i placed in at the end of last week on and 18 month one is showing 0%. Presumably i'm not receiving interest on this money until it is loaned out? debeast You earn interest as soon as your money is committed to a term regardless of whether or not it has been assigned to a loan yet. Therefore you are currently earning interest!!
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Post by batchoy on Feb 11, 2014 10:09:40 GMT
Didn't notice that but now i've looked. A small amount i placed in at the end of last week on and 18 month one is showing 0%. Presumably i'm not receiving interest on this money until it is loaned out? debeast You earn interest as soon as your money is committed to a term regardless of whether or not it has been assigned to a loan yet or not. Therefore you are currently earning interest!! Interesting, I had not picked up on that one, so no reason to have any dead money so long as you have more than the minimum investment amount in your account.
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Post by badger on Feb 11, 2014 11:29:28 GMT
My two toe-dipping amounts are now 100% matched as well, so it was just a few days waiting for a match.
However, I can still only see the same 'investment ref' which is different for each tranche. It seems there is nothing, not even an anonymous reference number, that identifies the borrower so I have no way of knowing if it is diversified.
That's a disappointment. I like the Wellesley concept, and I will probably go up to my knees shortly, but won't be investing big amounts without diversification.
I'm not knocking Wellesley, but I got stung very badly in 2012 when a "guaranteed" bridging loan fund that I had invested in went under. In the next 5 years - or even 18 months - the London property bubble could burst and/or we could be in another credit crunch. When push comes to shove, the only thing left to fall back on is what you are legally entitled to.
7.2 "... you risk losing any funds which has been Matched in circumstances where a Borrower to whom you are Matched defaults ... and the Company shall have no liability for any such loss" 7.6 "... the Provision Fund is a discretionary fund ... the Board is not obliged to provide compensation to you should a Default Event occur"
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Post by batchoy on Feb 11, 2014 11:41:46 GMT
My two toe-dipping amounts are now 100% matched as well, so it was just a few days waiting for a match. However, I can still only see the same 'investment ref' which is different for each tranche. It seems there is nothing, not even an anonymous reference number, that identifies the borrower so I have no way of knowing if it is diversified. That's a disappointment. I like the Wellesley concept, and I will probably go up to my knees shortly, but won't be investing big amounts without diversification. I'm not knocking Wellesley, but I got stung very badly in 2012 when a "guaranteed" bridging loan fund that I had invested in went under. In the next 5 years - or even 18 months - the London property bubble could burst and/or we could be in another credit crunch. When push comes to shove, the only thing left to fall back on is what you are legally entitled to. 7.2 "... you risk losing any funds which has been Matched in circumstances where a Borrower to whom you are Matched defaults ... and the Company shall have no liability for any such loss" 7.6 "... the Provision Fund is a discretionary fund ... the Board is not obliged to provide compensation to you should a Default Event occur" Wellesley have issued a 24 th loan which would explain the matching. The reasons for the discretionary nature of the provision fund is described in another thread www.p2pindependentforum.com/post/2945/thread
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shimself
Member of DD Central
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Post by shimself on Feb 11, 2014 12:32:01 GMT
If, heaven forfend, Wellesley themselves went bust, I would like to be able to prove my share of whichever loans, which I don't think I can do at present.
Also, in that event, is there any mechanism set up to continue to collect and disburse the repayments?
Thanks (and sorry to be so pessimistic)
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Post by badger on Feb 11, 2014 14:59:17 GMT
Well spotted batchoy that the number of loans has gone up. I guess I could diversify by waiting until my first tranche was fully matched, then waiting for the number of loans to clock up before investing the next tranche.
I would be nice if Wellesley could provide something like what's available on Funding Circle Auto-bid - "maximum % of portfolio lent to one business" which I've currently got set at 1%, but would be happy with a higher figure (10%) for Wellesley since the loan rate is much lower.
And I agree with shimself about traceability in the case of a default. Just a 'Loan ID' number would do. Otherwise, if a loan goes bad, what evidence have I got that I was actually matched to that loan?
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Post by wellesleyco on Feb 11, 2014 15:39:45 GMT
shimself please forgive me for quoting from our website: "We have made arrangements with our Security Trustee to take-over the administration of our customer loans in the case of Wellesley & Co no longer trading. The trustee will manage the day to day operations of Wellesley & Co to ensure that the platform can continue to be offered to existing customers and that all borrower payments of interest and capital are credited to your account as normal. The directors of Wellesley & Co have committed to assist the Security Trustee and the costs of operating would be covered by the Provision Fund." badger I understand from your point that you would like to see accross how many loans you are diversified?? When referring to a credit crunch happening again. With the growth of peer-to-peer lending industry, there will be more credit in the market and if the risks are higher the rewards follow those willing to lend. The Provision Fund is not allowed to guarantee any funds. No Peer-to-peer platform's provision fund is legally allowed to. Our Directors state that it is their severe intention to use the fund to make right any losses suffered. I think for the administrators and moderators sake, do we want to move onto the Provision Fund board for this?
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Post by badger on Feb 12, 2014 0:05:12 GMT
I think the point that I am making is about diversification, not the Provision Fund (though they are clearly related) so perhaps better to keep it on this thread?
I know that you do not, and cannot, give a guarantee on the Fund. We know that lending on a P2P platform is not risk-free, but we like to minimise the risk. Obviously it is a concern shared by others, as can be seen on the other thread, and I think that diversification would give extra reassurance to lenders and so make the platform more attractive.
I guess it would be quite easy to provide a table showing the Loan Agreements I am matched with (just reference numbers) and the amount matched against each. The Lender Agreement in any case says (17.1) that I can request this information, so why not make it available by default? It will (a) make diversification visible, (b) provide evidence that I am matched to a particular borrower if a Loan defaults (c) help with reconciliation if Wellesley themselves go bust (shimself's point).
The sort of diversification I would be looking for would be something along the lines of a promise that no single matched Loan will take more than 10% of my total funds, or £500 whichever is greater. (The £500 minimum would mean that smaller Lending Commitments - toe-dippers - would get matched straight away). I realise there is a cost to this - at 2 loans per week it could take 5 weeks for all my money to be matched, also I don't know how practical it would be software-wise.
I would be interested to know if others share this view or if I'm just being a fusspot.
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bugs4me
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Post by bugs4me on Feb 12, 2014 9:59:36 GMT
I think the point that I am making is about diversification, not the Provision Fund (though they are clearly related) so perhaps better to keep it on this thread?
I know that you do not, and cannot, give a guarantee on the Fund. We know that lending on a P2P platform is not risk-free, but we like to minimise the risk. Obviously it is a concern shared by others, as can be seen on the other thread, and I think that diversification would give extra reassurance to lenders and so make the platform more attractive.
I guess it would be quite easy to provide a table showing the Loan Agreements I am matched with (just reference numbers) and the amount matched against each. The Lender Agreement in any case says (17.1) that I can request this information, so why not make it available by default? It will (a) make diversification visible, (b) provide evidence that I am matched to a particular borrower if a Loan defaults (c) help with reconciliation if Wellesley themselves go bust (shimself's point).
The sort of diversification I would be looking for would be something along the lines of a promise that no single matched Loan will take more than 10% of my total funds, or £500 whichever is greater. (The £500 minimum would mean that smaller Lending Commitments - toe-dippers - would get matched straight away). I realise there is a cost to this - at 2 loans per week it could take 5 weeks for all my money to be matched, also I don't know how practical it would be software-wise.
I would be interested to know if others share this view or if I'm just being a fusspot. No I don't think you are being a fusspot but you are proposing a type of mini Zopa operation from what I can see rather than that being operated by say RS. Personally it's of no relevance to me whether it's one lender or say ten. Provided there is some form of security albeit I accept nothing is 100% guaranteed, then it's of no relevance to me. Operating a mini Zopa though would undoubtedly increase administration costs are probably impact returns. Just a thought.
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Post by batchoy on Feb 12, 2014 10:45:01 GMT
I think the point that I am making is about diversification, not the Provision Fund (though they are clearly related) so perhaps better to keep it on this thread?
I know that you do not, and cannot, give a guarantee on the Fund. We know that lending on a P2P platform is not risk-free, but we like to minimise the risk. Obviously it is a concern shared by others, as can be seen on the other thread, and I think that diversification would give extra reassurance to lenders and so make the platform more attractive.
I guess it would be quite easy to provide a table showing the Loan Agreements I am matched with (just reference numbers) and the amount matched against each. The Lender Agreement in any case says (17.1) that I can request this information, so why not make it available by default? It will (a) make diversification visible, (b) provide evidence that I am matched to a particular borrower if a Loan defaults (c) help with reconciliation if Wellesley themselves go bust (shimself's point).
The sort of diversification I would be looking for would be something along the lines of a promise that no single matched Loan will take more than 10% of my total funds, or £500 whichever is greater. (The £500 minimum would mean that smaller Lending Commitments - toe-dippers - would get matched straight away). I realise there is a cost to this - at 2 loans per week it could take 5 weeks for all my money to be matched, also I don't know how practical it would be software-wise.
I would be interested to know if others share this view or if I'm just being a fusspot. As Wellesley model does not allow you to choose the loans being assigned to your lending, does not allow you select the or dispose loans that are assigned to you knowing which loans are assigned are of little relevance. With the levels of security that Wellesley are getting on their loans and the added provision fund diversification of the loan assignment is not of great import, and at the current time the levels you are asking for are not possible within the current portfolio.
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Post by bengilbert on Feb 12, 2014 15:24:24 GMT
I'm not knocking Wellesley, but I got stung very badly in 2012 when a "guaranteed" bridging loan fund that I had invested in went under. badger, could you give any more details of what happened with the fund that went under? Bridging loans look well-secured to me but for an investment that pays over 10%, I assume there are some not-insignificant risks. Hearing about loans that went wrong might help make it clearer where exactly the risks are.
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Post by wellesleyco on Feb 12, 2014 15:36:52 GMT
The Current 'Investment Reference' that is displayed to customers does not reflect any loans assigned, it reflects the selected lending term e.g. '18 month capital' badger, I understand your point, it is something that we are looking into software to enable. we are always looking at ways to improve the website (front-end) and investment software (back-end) to enable us to operate in the optimum way. These things do take some time to get perfect, but rest assured we are trying to get there. Integrating these two we are working on the best solution to our loan matching system and the way its reported (displayed) to our customers. The reason we have not done this from the outset is that it was not our intention to have that kind of model. We don't believe that everybody wants to know what loans they are matched to and some people like the platform for its simplicity and that all the loan matching is done by us. It was never our intention to have customers cherry picking loans as is the case with FC, that is not our plan. Although currently it is not displayed to customers, we have precise records of what funds are allocated to each loan and therefore if you were to request to know you would be given that information. If Wellesley goes bust, for reconciliation the administrators would have that information also. batchoy I thank you for your point. We agree however moving forward we shall try and accommodate this extra layer as it seems that many lenders used to other models hold this as a strong view. As a matter of a fact I have just had a productive conversation with one of our Directors, Andrew Turnbull and we are working on something...
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Post by badger on Feb 12, 2014 16:46:37 GMT
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Post by davee39 on Feb 12, 2014 17:12:21 GMT
I can understand some of the caution displayed here, but there is a big difference between loans based on identified property assets and certain fund failures where assets have either gone missing or been wrongly described. I will only be using Wellesley for a relatively small investment until they become more established, but membership of the p2p association implies that the company is legit and meets the standards required ahead of regulation.
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