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Post by mrclondon on Dec 24, 2013 12:40:52 GMT
Just received this email
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Post by bracknellboy on Dec 24, 2013 12:48:07 GMT
clearly the abundance of nuts @ Xmas has failed to save the Squirrl
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Post by easteregg on Dec 27, 2013 10:32:13 GMT
This is sad news, but unfortunately inevitable given that they had not arranged any loans since December 2012. I expect 2014 will see at least one other also close.
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bugs4me
Member of DD Central
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Post by bugs4me on Dec 27, 2013 10:35:29 GMT
This is sad news, but unfortunately inevitable given that they had not arranged any loans since December 2012. I expect 2014 will see at least one other also close. Think you'll see more than one sadly. I can think of at least another one ATM that has effectively all but closed.
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Post by westonkevRS on Dec 27, 2013 15:22:12 GMT
As an early participant in anything vaguely p2p for several years, I've had some money in "another p2p" which has been very quiet for a long time. No social media, no news.... Just rele fleas stream of emails eveytime a loan repayment was made. So I withdrew 90% of my cash.... And with the cost of regulation these amateur efforts will close. Get you money whilst you can is my biased recommendation....
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bugs4me
Member of DD Central
Posts: 1,838
Likes: 1,461
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Post by bugs4me on Dec 27, 2013 15:33:31 GMT
As an early participant in anything vaguely p2p for several years, I've had some money in "another p2p" which has been very quiet for a long time. No social media, no news.... Just rele fleas stream of emails eveytime a loan repayment was made. So I withdrew 90% of my cash.... And with the cost of regulation these amateur efforts will close. Get you money whilst you can is my biased recommendation.... Agree with the sentiment over the costs of FCA regulation as we all know it's not just the membership costs - it's all the other stuff - PI insurance for starters. Lenders/investors will start looking for the FCA logo even though there won't be any compensation scheme in place. So I would revise my thinking that it won't just be the one that will 'close' next year - expect a few to just fade away. I also pushed a few coins into one that was going to set the world alight some 3 years ago. Got off with a blaze of free publicity (think it was from the Mail if my memory serves me right) then after that initial flurry nothing happened. Fortunately got my money out. Thought it was a bit weird they wanted to see a copy of my bank statement which I'd made the initial deposit from - talk about a micky mouse operation!!! Nope, they haven't officially closed but nothing's happening either.
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Post by westonkevRS on Dec 28, 2013 9:41:36 GMT
Actually let me add Abundance Energy to the list of organizations I have used and like. I'm not sure over the long term how profitable they'll be for their lenders (and they are busy arguing against the FCA's limited definitions of crowd based lenders and equity), but I think what there doing is magnificent and brilliantly run. Not dissimilar to the Co-Ops for Wind Turbines that I've also invested in and getting 9%. I certainly hope Abundance and the Energy Co-Ops survive regulation.
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bugs4me
Member of DD Central
Posts: 1,838
Likes: 1,461
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Post by bugs4me on Dec 28, 2013 15:26:04 GMT
Actually let me add Abundance Energy to the list of organizations I have used and like. I'm not sure over the long term how profitable they'll be for their lenders (and they are busy arguing against the FCA's limited definitions of crowd based lenders and equity), but I think what there doing is magnificent and brilliantly run. Not dissimilar to the Co-Ops for Wind Turbines that I've also invested in and getting 9%. I certainly hope Abundance and the Energy Co-Ops survive regulation. I still maintain that the first thing lenders/investors will look for on the web site will be the FCA logo come April. Without that logo then many will just fade away IMO.
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Post by yorkshireman on Dec 29, 2013 18:20:42 GMT
As an early participant in anything vaguely p2p for several years, I've had some money in "another p2p" which has been very quiet for a long time. No social media, no news.... Just rele fleas stream of emails eveytime a loan repayment was made. So I withdrew 90% of my cash.... And with the cost of regulation these amateur efforts will close. Get you money whilst you can is my biased recommendation.... I also pushed a few coins into one that was going to set the world alight some 3 years ago. Got off with a blaze of free publicity (think it was from the Mail if my memory serves me right) then after that initial flurry nothing happened. Fortunately got my money out. Thought it was a bit weird they wanted to see a copy of my bank statement which I'd made the initial deposit from - talk about a micky mouse operation!!! Nope, they haven't officially closed but nothing's happening either.
Could that be Yes Secure aka Encash by any chance?
If so, they deserve to go out of business for the sheer unprofessionalism and absence of courtesy displayed to lenders by the lack of information when loans went t*ts up plus a customer service help line that was manned by staff with barely any English.
Good riddance.
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Post by karlh on Jan 27, 2014 11:31:26 GMT
Hello, thanks for the endorsement WestonKev!
We have been regulated since 2011 (we launched in late 2012) and have the accolade of being the first crowdfunding platform to achieve regulation in the UK, out team also has a combined 60 years of experience operating in the regulated environment. We are also very concerned that there is going to be a lot of platform casualties over the coming 18 months and this will undermine the sector as a whole. As founding members of the UK crowdfunding association, we get to see many of the start up firms. The trend at the moment is that firms are rushing to get a licence from the OFT in order that they can get grandfathered into the new regulatory regime operated by the FCA. It took us 18 months to get authorised and during the process we had 3 team meetings with the FCA as well as one one interviews to check our suitability to run a retail finance firm! We are therefore concerned that many firms will come through and get the endorsement of regulation but will not be properly set up to run their businesses. Firms such as Ratesetter, Funding Circle and Zopa are excellently run and capitalised and will adjust well to the new regime, but others will not fair so well, either because they have inexperienced or naive teams or simply in a more competitive market will not be able to carry the extra costs.
As Westonkev points out we have been heavily involved in the design of the the new crowdfunding legalisation, one of the points that we have been concerned with is that FCA took what we considered an arbitrary view that Debt securities (which is what we use on Abundance) are intrinsically higher risk than a simple loan (funding circle). The argument we made is that the instrument does not determine the risk it is the underlying asset which is the determinant, we will wait till the final document is published but from conversations we had with the FCA we are hopeful we won this argument and therefore loans and debt securities from a risk perspective are treated equally.
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