unmadem
Member of DD Central
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Post by unmadem on Feb 9, 2015 12:40:53 GMT
Hi I can understand the frustration but there will be one up this week. Again, its a case of making sure they are good loans up to our criteria and they make sense for the borrower and the lender. There is also a lot of work going on with the new platform, we have had several meetings with new categories of loans that we have delayed until the new platform is launched and these are the important things that we have learned and will be implementing on the new one: 1. Deal flow - we don't have a problem with deal flow, however, we need to be able to manage it better, if we are honest about it. With aircraft loans they have to close, as there is a delivery date there, so putting transactions up that might not close is not an option. We also want investors to see whats coming up, be able to evaluate the loans longer etc, before going live. 2. Secondary Market liquidity. With terms on the loans being longer we want lenders to the have the option to liquidate if they require. So we have been working on the liquidity of the SM which will be self-evident on the new platform. 3. Technology frustrations.. We see on these boards a lot of frustration with the technology - this is something we are keen to get right and with the tools we are implementing it's important to be sure they are correct. So our testing at the end of March will be intensive and we hope to invite some members to test with us. Its encouraging to know that people are keen to see our loans and we appreciate that people would like to get involved and diversify on the platform. We are working diligently to make Ablrate an even better offering to investors, and want to make sure that everything we do is aimed at protecting the investments you guys trust us with. Rest assured, the deal flow on Ablrate will be increasing rapidly over the coming months as we solve the particular challenges within our sector. Regards Ablrate I presume you have looked at options to give retail investors a variable part of a loan with underwriters or your institutional investor flexing their commitment to ensure your deal completes. Or completing a deal and then offering part of it to retail investors after the event to release your money for future deals (think some of your existing loans were on that basis)
Glad to hear you are planning to do lots of testing. You can't do too much testing. Hope you are working on test scripts now in preparation for the software being completed.
There is definitely a chicken and egg situation here. Another forum member mentioned that he was just testing the water and only putting in small amounts. Once he was confident of the platform/deal flow he would invest more per loan. I am in the same boat. A tricky problem for you though I accept.
I look forward to seeing what the next few months bring.
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Post by ablrate on Feb 9, 2015 14:48:45 GMT
I presume you have looked at options to give retail investors a variable part of a loan with underwriters or your institutional investor flexing their commitment to ensure your deal completes. Or completing a deal and then offering part of it to retail investors after the event to release your money for future deals (think some of your existing loans were on that basis)
Glad to hear you are planning to do lots of testing. You can't do too much testing. Hope you are working on test scripts now in preparation for the software being completed.
There is definitely a chicken and egg situation here. Another forum member mentioned that he was just testing the water and only putting in small amounts. Once he was confident of the platform/deal flow he would invest more per loan. I am in the same boat. A tricky problem for you though I accept.
I look forward to seeing what the next few months bring.
Thanks for the feedback. There will always be an opportunity for non-underwriters to get involved in a transaction, they may also sell their loans in the SM with certain restrictions. The developers we have on board are very good. UK based with lots of experience of having developed complicated systems for well-known companies. They have some very good processes for testing so we are very confident in their abilities. Take your point on testing us out, that is why we want to take what we have learned from the last 6 months and deploy those lessons in the new system. Regards Ablrate
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shimself
Member of DD Central
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Post by shimself on Feb 9, 2015 17:01:09 GMT
I'm a bit worried by this, clunky though the old site was, and definitely short of testing by a customer champion or user panel, it was possible to buy and sell stuff and the figures seemed correct.
Once we have the new website it'll all be different and better, well um, gives me the willies really. I just worry that everyone at Ablrate Towers world HQ is kinda naive about magic software.
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jjc
Member of DD Central
Posts: 414
Likes: 632
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Post by jjc on Feb 9, 2015 17:49:37 GMT
Sorry but am fully with shimself on this. Deal flow is the one & only big urgent issue for ABL. The current site works, sure it can be improved but I can’t understand why everything has to take a second seat to the new magical offering. Sounds like far too much time being spent on the salad dressing & the cook’s forgotten the beef. And cheese. And pretty much everything else. I’m off for a sausage roll. Somewhere cheap’n nasty might have to settle for a dry one at the back but when your tummy’s a-rumbling…
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Post by ablrate on Feb 10, 2015 9:53:14 GMT
I can understand where you are coming from origination would seem to be everything in this market. It was one of the things we discussed a lot when we set up Ablrate. We had seen other sites (who shall remain nameless) getting a bit of a slating on here about origination, and we figured that couldn't happen to us because our pipeline was and is, very large. The complexities of our particular niche, however, present challenges that we have had to address as we go along. One of those (which I cant go into too much detail about, but will be well explained when we launch) is the way some loans are structured. We needed a facility, which we do not currently have, to allow some of our loan pipeline to make sense on the site - that is coming with the new platform also...
There also needs to be an element of flexible timing for funding on some loans - we know you all hate drawn downs that take forever.... This could be an issue on some loans.... so we thought about it and we have a solution which we will share on/shortly before launch of the new site.
We also have seen on here how some loans have been put up and then gone bang a few months later - that is not the game we are in - we are long term, fair returns for fair risk.
There are plenty of loans, we just have to make sure they get placed - and one, minimum, will be up this week.
Regards Ablrate
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Post by ablrate on Feb 13, 2015 18:43:01 GMT
Hi All
A new loan is coming on the site tommorow. Some brief details are posted on the front page and have been emailed to lenders.
Regards Ablrate
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