The good ol' days

I guess I may have read too much into it.


To be fair to SS they have released loans in the evening before now, and when they did implement a bidding cap it certainly appeared to work reasonably well, but I’m not sure it extended the loan fill time by much.

I am wondering whether there is a danger of a sledgehammer to crack a nut, and whether the nut even exists – only two people posting have actually said they missed out on either / or PBL23 and 24. I like the SS model and like ramblin rose, would not want to see it get mired in unnecessary complications.

There's always going to be the odd loan here and there that lenders/investors miss out on with all platforms unless you are super glued to your PC 24/7 with idle lumps of cash sitting around. That's the nature of the P2P business.

Just keep it simple as once a platform introduces levels of so called sophistication then everyone suffers in my book.

star dust:  You can increase the size of the nut by a notch -- by the time I saw PBL023 and PBL024 they both were fully funded.

That probably still doesn't make it big enough to require a sledgehammer, though.  I wouldn't have thought that applying a bidding limit was a big complication, but others may so I'm not about to sulk if SS change nothing.  But I would like them to think about it.  And lest anyone think I'm arguing in favour of a limit because it would help me personally, I'll say that it probably wouldn't, because if the poll is representative then I'm a 'larger' investor.

The real issue is balancing investors and borrowers.  There should be no problem as long as both grow at similar rates.  The issues arise when there's an imbalance.  If a loan appears on the website and that results in a feeding frenzy that lasts a very few minutes before the loan is fully funded, then the result will be unhappy investors and IMHO Jaydee's suggestion of "what the majority of investors want" would not be the case.  But an increased flow loans certainly would help that situation.

I expect that what most investors would like is an active secondary market giving them the ability to buy parts of any loan they'd like whenever they have cash to spare -- and also to be able to sell parts of any loan they'd like whenever they wish to raise cash.  At the moment, the former doesn't really exist at SS but the latter certainly does.

I don't think investors would be too worried about missing the odd loan or two.  It's when they start missing out on most loans that the disappointment sets in.  While I accept that you can't invest without having funds at the ready, I don't accept that it's necessary to be glued to the internet 24/7 on all platforms in order to invest.  There are a number of platforms -- AC, Z, and RS immediately come to mind and I expect there are more -- where the investor deposits their money, specifies what they wish to invest in, and the platform makes the investments for them as opportunities arise.  Making this possible could be considered a level of sophistication, but I'm not convinced that everyone on those platforms suffers as a result of its existence.

So now we know......SIMPLY A BIGGER SCRUM @ 18:00 on  ??/??/? On your marks, get set.........!!!!

Hmm.  Not sure I'm keen on that development - definitely will develop a scrum mentality.  If it has to be this way (and I guess we'll just have to see how it goes), I'd suggest that varying the time might be best.  Not everybody goes to work during the day time, not everyone who does work during the daytime will be home by 6pm etc, etc.  Varying the start time on different loans might give more people more opportunities?  Certainly having some notice will help many; I did OK under the existing system as I'm often around and keep a frequent eye out.  If it works, it works, and if it doesn't then I guess they'll stop.

Well, the FS site no longer does that; web site ought to be able to cope without crashing.  Whether the accounting will cope correctly with overpurchased loans is another matter - there is no sign that that problem has been resolved, and with so many trying to purchase at once something might give.

I suspect it may affect the pattern of AM sales too, with more re-financiers starting to sell at the 24 hour notice point, or the morning to avoid losing a day's interest. Not sure if that would be a good / bad or indifferent change though, I have picked up AM loan parts when new ones go live, so I quite liked the concentrated time- frame, we shall see.