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Post by pepperpot on Feb 28, 2015 23:53:25 GMT
If I'm to believe everything on this thread, then, is it the opinion of the AC senior management that both FC and RS are non-compliant in this area? Both accept my debit card deposits which take 3 business days to clear, but the funds can be officially 'on loan' in minutes, I have transaction statements and borrower/lender contracts to prove it. What consequences of this non-compliance are awaiting two of the three* largest P2P companies in the UK?
Maybe I'm naive, but I just can't imagine Samir and Rhydian ending up in jail.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a supporter (and soon to be shareholder) of AC, which is why I want to make the point that a disadvantage that is (in my view) becoming unnecessarily caught up in it's own red tape, may be taking too much attention, which could be better deployed elsewhere. I fully appreciate the banking background, and the desire, no, determination not to make mistakes, but an inability to be flexible when the whole industry is still in a malleable form might prove to be just as damaging. The rules are being made up as issues arise that counter the established letter of the law.
[rhetorical Q] Is the source of the client money rules compliance interpretation the same as the decision to withhold tax on a certain wind turbine deal? - If that sequence of conversations doesn't highlight that in some cases it's the law that needs to conform to P2P rather than the visa versa, I don't know what will. Because that decision rolled out on mass would have killed every P2x platform overnight {EDIT}, but at the time AC were in agreement with it. It might have inspired confidence in procedures, but it left me thinking - have they got what it takes?
The inspirational saying for the day - Why not make waves, rather than just trying to ride them?
* I haven't used Zopa for nearly 18mths so cannot currently comment on the third.
{EDIT; a bit sensationalist, might not kill all of them, but would have had wide sweeping consequences.}
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Post by pepperpot on Feb 28, 2015 23:57:25 GMT
This has been an interesting thread. I note Chris's comment on the distinction between debit card and FP transactions. I'm only aware of 2 platforms that use debit card: FC and RS, and as I recall RS is quite recent (I certainly remember it used to take some time to get funds in). <snip> RS has accepted debit card payments since I joined in Summer '13. They just removed the fee (£1.50) for >£1k deposits last year sometime. If memory serves me rightly.
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acorn
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Post by acorn on Feb 28, 2015 23:59:06 GMT
We find Faster Payments is so variable from site to site and this is very frustrating. We are not really interested in whose door the "blame" should be laid at as this is 2015 and even old fossils like us know it should be working better than this by now! ( rather like the "paper free" office promise of 30+ years ago!)
fp between banks = instant.
fp between bank & p2p/b sites varies between instant and 2 days. AC is usually 2 days, occasionally one, though criteria for obtaining this faster transfer seem to be unpredictable.
Other regular payments (yearly/monthly D/Ds) such as car/home insurance, water rate & council tax vary in the way they are collected/reserved. I guess the insurance ones bug us the most because they seem to think they are doing us a favour when they say they will collect it within ten days of the due date. (We run a tight ship out of necessity and really would rather they took it on the due date or as near as possible.)
Using a debit card to pay for groceries and day to day expenses causes similar frustrations, particularly if used on a Friday, as these transactions do not usually show up on our a/c until the following Tuesday at the earliest. The "available balance" often reflects these payments but does not list individual payments that are outstanding. We have a joint a/c, both carry cards and cannot read each other's minds, though we do both have unreasonable expectations in this area at times!
We used to use credit cards to delay payment for a month but found this to be a slippery slope in uncertain times so have returned to real time expenditure unless funds are ring-fenced elsewhere for regular payments.
It seems to me that banks are making the "visible face" of transactions glossy and sexy, though not really secure/friendly for humanity in all its diversity, but the back-office is not keeping pace. Whilst I appreciate that banks are often housed in impressive, expensive to maintain, properties, the delay undoubtedly benefits the banks financially in the short term. All it needs is a disruptive innovator (hint, hint!!) and we will be outta there in the blink of an eye.
It brings to mind the newer pedestrian crossings that are great if you are a 3 minute miler but c**p if you take any longer to cross the road!
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pikestaff
Member of DD Central
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Post by pikestaff on Mar 1, 2015 7:43:19 GMT
To be totally clear just because other sites permit instant use of (someone else's ) funds that in reality don't actually arrive in the platform's bank for several days doesn't mean they are obeying client money rules or have found a legal solution. You should ask them if they are compliant. I'd rather not go to jail thanks. Do you feel comfortable if a platform was to breach client money rules as a matter of day to day business ? There are potential solutions but its a lot harder than a retail website giving you a 'credit' facility for a few days unfortunately. I'm sorry Stuart, but AC seem to be the only platform that take this view on debit cards, and the mainstream providers that I use for other types of investment also have no problem with them. You may need to change your advisor.
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Post by chris on Mar 1, 2015 7:54:27 GMT
If I'm to believe everything on this thread, then, is it the opinion of the AC senior management that both FC and RS are non-compliant in this area? Both accept my debit card deposits which take 3 business days to clear, but the funds can be officially 'on loan' in minutes, I have transaction statements and borrower/lender contracts to prove it. What consequences of this non-compliance are awaiting two of the three* largest P2P companies in the UK? Maybe I'm naive, but I just can't imagine Samir and Rhydian ending up in jail. Don't get me wrong, I'm a supporter (and soon to be shareholder) of AC, which is why I want to make the point that a disadvantage that is (in my view) becoming unnecessarily caught up in it's own red tape, may be taking too much attention, which could be better deployed elsewhere. I fully appreciate the banking background, and the desire, no, determination not to make mistakes, but an inability to be flexible when the whole industry is still in a malleable form might prove to be just as damaging. The rules are being made up as issues arise that counter the established letter of the law. We have a clear policy of following FCA rules and discussing them with them after making sure we're compliant if we feel change is required. Not all platforms feel the same way and this has already been reflected in some platforms being slapped by the FCA for inappropriate promotions on their site whereas we were not. If the FCA feel a platform is not compliant they have a wide variety of powers at their disposal from punitive fines through to simply shutting the platform down. In the worst case if we are wilfully non-compliant we could face lawsuits from our users and / or the authorities and jail time is a possibility. I do not know if FC and RS are 100% compliant with debit cards. By default I would presume they are but to do so they will need to be setting aside hundreds of thousands of pounds of their own money and shuffling it between accounts in order to correctly comply. Either platform may have a fully compliant solution or they are pushing back on the FCA on the matter or anything in between. You'd need to ask those platforms. [rhetorical Q] Is the source of the client money rules compliance interpretation the same as the decision to withhold tax on a certain wind turbine deal? - If that sequence of conversations doesn't highlight that in some cases it's the law that needs to conform to P2P rather than the visa versa, I don't know what will. Because that decision rolled out on mass would have killed every P2x platform overnight {EDIT}, but at the time AC were in agreement with it. It might have inspired confidence in procedures, but it left me thinking - have they got what it takes? The inspirational saying for the day - Why not make waves, rather than just trying to ride them? * I haven't used Zopa for nearly 18mths so cannot currently comment on the third. {EDIT; a bit sensationalist, might not kill all of them, but would have had wide sweeping consequences.} We really do not feel that making waves with the regulator is the right approach particularly on something as sensitive and important as client money handling. Their rules on this are for your benefit and after our fund raise we can now afford to implement some of the more exotic solutions that will give our users the fast deposits they desire whilst allowing us to be 100% compliant with the FCA's rules. No the source for the client money rules is not the same as the withholding tax. That was the borrowers lawyer and their interpretation of the law was correct until we could discuss the case in detail with HMRC. HMRC have now confirmed in writing their approach to the regulations and P2P, which whilst far more sensible is contrary to the letter of the law, which is why the borrower has changed their view and we can now provide clear guidance to our other borrowers.
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Post by chris on Mar 1, 2015 8:01:56 GMT
To be totally clear just because other sites permit instant use of (someone else's ) funds that in reality don't actually arrive in the platform's bank for several days doesn't mean they are obeying client money rules or have found a legal solution. You should ask them if they are compliant. I'd rather not go to jail thanks. Do you feel comfortable if a platform was to breach client money rules as a matter of day to day business ? There are potential solutions but its a lot harder than a retail website giving you a 'credit' facility for a few days unfortunately. I'm sorry Stuart, but AC seem to be the only platform that take this view on debit cards, and the mainstream providers that I use for other types of investment also have no problem with them. You may need to change your advisor. On top of the reasons i've just outlined on another post, we do believe the FCA's approach is the right one. The client money rules, whilst creating some work for us, are broadly in line with out historic approach to client money with the slight headache around clearing funds. The FCA's reasoning is solid and it's up to us, and other platforms, to create compliant solutions that meet our lenders needs. We now have the funding to do so. With the FCA already writing to other sites to force them to change the wording on their sites and starting to reject applications for permission to operate P2P sites now is really not the time to be cavalier for the sake of convenience.
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Post by valerieb on Mar 1, 2015 8:47:25 GMT
My experience with getting money into AC hasn't been so bad, It has always been in by 9am the day after the transfer. Yes, it's slower than all the other P2P platforms I use, but it isn't really that bad. It isn't like new loans fill in minutes like some other sites either, so you are unlikely to miss out on a loan. Indeed. There are currently three up-and-coming loans that I fancy. So I keep enough cash in my Assetz account to cover my target investment on one. (I keep things simple. My target investment is always the same; either I like the loan or I don't.) Whichever up-and-coming loan moves to the SM first gets bought automatically, and I top up the cash to cover the next one. Instantaneous cash transfer though nice is unlikely to be a necessity. I have never felt the need to "park" cash in loans I would not have otherwise bought. One loans worth of cash sitting "dead" is not going to break the bank. Putting the cash where I would not normally have done so might. Whilst I understand the reason for the annoyance and frustration expressed in this thread, I only find it a minor irritation which I circumvent in the way lynnanthony describes above. For the moment this works well for me but I appreciate that if and when the flow of loans increases and several loans drawdown close together, I may not be so happy! Despite the increasing length of the list of 'coming soon' loans, it's the delays in drawdown which discourage me from recycling cash from other p2b sites. Some of the money will get transferred eventually but I'd hoped quicker and these delays do encourage me to look elsewhere.
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rogerbu
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Post by rogerbu on Mar 1, 2015 8:56:18 GMT
I started this thread because of my frustration with AC's slow 'Faster Payments' process (not the banks).
As a future shareholder I clearly want them to succeed. If I had felt that AC was more Customer Centric I would have invested more into their shares.
The views have been interesting as are the responses from AC - Thank you Chris for honestly and actively supporting your customers on the forum.
A recent AC comment was... "after our fund raise we can now afford to implement some of the more exotic solutions that will give our users the fast deposits they desire whilst allowing us to be 100% compliant with the FCA's rules."
From all the responses in this thread, Assetz Capital needs to be very sure that we will be watching them very carefully to see that they deliver on the above promise.
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bugs4me
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Post by bugs4me on Mar 1, 2015 9:43:49 GMT
So the solution then chris would be for AC to streamline it's money handling process. My bank is insistent that unless the recipients bank is outside of the normal bank clearing system - whatever that means - then effectively FP would be credited with reference to your bank account immediately although I'm sure that equates to within a couple of hours. Whilst I'm sure the FCA may take a dim view regarding certain misleading claims being made by other P2P platforms I would imagine they would jump from a great height if they felt there was any misappropriation regarding client funds - and they would jump without warning. As they (the FCA) are new to P2P regulation I'm also confident they would arrange for a convenient publicity leak here and there regarding their actions to ensure a deterrent factor applied. This problem though really goes back to the removal of the Go-Cardless facility. Appreciate that GC became prohibitively expensive but the reality was that no action was implemented to maintain the fast account credits. I'm confident though that a more streamlined approach within the AC system may be the answer. |
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Post by chris on Mar 1, 2015 11:19:50 GMT
So the solution then chris would be for AC to streamline it's money handling process. My bank is insistent that unless the recipients bank is outside of the normal bank clearing system - whatever that means - then effectively FP would be credited with reference to your bank account immediately although I'm sure that equates to within a couple of hours. Whilst I'm sure the FCA may take a dim view regarding certain misleading claims being made by other P2P platforms I would imagine they would jump from a great height if they felt there was any misappropriation regarding client funds - and they would jump without warning. As they (the FCA) are new to P2P regulation I'm also confident they would arrange for a convenient publicity leak here and there regarding their actions to ensure a deterrent factor applied. This problem though really goes back to the removal of the Go-Cardless facility. Appreciate that GC became prohibitively expensive but the reality was that no action was implemented to maintain the fast account credits. I'm confident though that a more streamlined approach within the AC system may be the answer. GC wasn't dropped because of the costs. We would have migrated away from them as soon as we had a replacement were it just for cost reasons. GC was dropped because it took up to 6 days to clear the funds plus there would then be a chargeback period. Thus they were not compliant with the client money regulations without the same complicated workarounds as debit cards but with an even longer clearing period. Yes we need to streamline our money handling processes, something we've been talking about for a while and making slow progress with the traditional financial institutions to give us the electronic access we need. As previously mentioned Stuart has just massively elevated the priority of this project and made a director personally responsible for its delivery, plus the completion of our funding round allows us to explore options that were previously prohibitively expensive. Edit: I should add that the FCA will not have looked into every businesses processes yet. We've had an initial spot check / fact finding visit where we believe we were among a handful of platforms visited. The initial feedback has been positive from the FCA on all we're doing with some suggestions of where they'd like us to end up as we scale. I don't know which of our competitors have been visited, if they've had their client money processes examined, or the feedback given to them.
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bugs4me
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Post by bugs4me on Mar 1, 2015 11:43:14 GMT
So the solution then chris would be for AC to streamline it's money handling process. My bank is insistent that unless the recipients bank is outside of the normal bank clearing system - whatever that means - then effectively FP would be credited with reference to your bank account immediately although I'm sure that equates to within a couple of hours. Whilst I'm sure the FCA may take a dim view regarding certain misleading claims being made by other P2P platforms I would imagine they would jump from a great height if they felt there was any misappropriation regarding client funds - and they would jump without warning. As they (the FCA) are new to P2P regulation I'm also confident they would arrange for a convenient publicity leak here and there regarding their actions to ensure a deterrent factor applied. This problem though really goes back to the removal of the Go-Cardless facility. Appreciate that GC became prohibitively expensive but the reality was that no action was implemented to maintain the fast account credits. I'm confident though that a more streamlined approach within the AC system may be the answer. <snip> As previously mentioned Stuart has just massively elevated the priority of this project and made a director personally responsible for its delivery..... - I don't wish to add to your workload but......I hope it's yourself that's been made personally responsible  At least then we can get transferred funds credited more promptly than currently being experienced and loose this negative.
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Post by chris on Mar 1, 2015 11:55:43 GMT
<snip> As previously mentioned Stuart has just massively elevated the priority of this project and made a director personally responsible for its delivery..... - I don't wish to add to your workload but......I hope it's yourself that's been made personally responsible At least then we can get transferred funds credited more promptly than currently being experienced and loose this negative. I'll manage the technical integration but I won't be heading the business relationship with the bank and other institutions.
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pikestaff
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Post by pikestaff on Mar 1, 2015 12:19:26 GMT
I'm sorry Stuart, but AC seem to be the only platform that take this view on debit cards, and the mainstream providers that I use for other types of investment also have no problem with them. You may need to change your advisor. On top of the reasons i've just outlined on another post, we do believe the FCA's approach is the right one. The client money rules, whilst creating some work for us, are broadly in line with out historic approach to client money with the slight headache around clearing funds. The FCA's reasoning is solid and it's up to us, and other platforms, to create compliant solutions that meet our lenders needs. We now have the funding to do so. With the FCA already writing to other sites to force them to change the wording on their sites and starting to reject applications for permission to operate P2P sites now is really not the time to be cavalier for the sake of convenience. Rather misses my point. I'm not asking you to be cavalier. No other institution that I deal with, including the mainstream providers that I use for other types of investment, has a problem with debit cards. This does rather suggest that someone may have got the wrong end of the stick. Having said that, it is only a minor nuisance as far as I am concerned. The only thing that's stopping me from investing more is lack of deal flow.
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Post by chris on Mar 1, 2015 12:24:10 GMT
On top of the reasons i've just outlined on another post, we do believe the FCA's approach is the right one. The client money rules, whilst creating some work for us, are broadly in line with out historic approach to client money with the slight headache around clearing funds. The FCA's reasoning is solid and it's up to us, and other platforms, to create compliant solutions that meet our lenders needs. We now have the funding to do so. With the FCA already writing to other sites to force them to change the wording on their sites and starting to reject applications for permission to operate P2P sites now is really not the time to be cavalier for the sake of convenience. Rather misses my point. I'm not asking you to be cavalier. No other institution that I deal with, including the mainstream providers that I use for other types of investment, has a problem with debit cards. This does rather suggest that someone may have got the wrong end of the stick. Having said that, it is only a minor nuisance as far as I am concerned. The only thing that's stopping me from investing more is lack of deal flow. My compliance knowledge is limited but my understanding is that these client money rules are specific for P2P, so comparisons to other institutions as probably unfair. Edit: I should also add that I've personally read the client money rules that apply to us as they're so fundamental to our operation. In my opinion they are unambiguous and clear in what they ask us to do. Perhaps there is clever scope to play around with the semantics of a sentence somewhere and others think they have a loophole. But in my opinion that would be playing with fire. It could just be that other platforms have a solution as simple as having someone check the bank account every hour who then manually credits accounts based on received funds. Our bank displays faster payments in near real time on their website but all their exports that we currently have access to, and therefore can process automatically, are based on statements of the previous days cleared transactions.
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baz657
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Post by baz657 on Mar 1, 2015 13:56:52 GMT
It could just be that other platforms have a solution as simple as having someone check the bank account every hour who then manually credits accounts based on received funds. Our bank displays faster payments in near real time on their website... Isn't that a really easy option and quick fix for AC in the short term? If not having an employee full time certainly have someone when there is or might be a loan drawing down and lenders want to get their cash in quick.
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