bjorn
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Post by bjorn on Sept 10, 2015 15:22:07 GMT
I signed up with Fermented Cabbage as my first p2p platform a couple of months ago and I probably wouldn’t have bothered looking elsewhere until the fixed rate announcement. Now I’d like to try other platforms. I’m looking to try to get something similar to what I was getting with FC i.e., 9-10% (or higher) net return with a good level of diversification and decent liquidity. From first glance, other platforms seem to offer one or two of those criteria but not all of them.
In what order would you guys rank other platforms (based on the above plus general recommendation/experience)? Top candidates on my radar are SS, FS, AC and ReBS.
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SteveT
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Post by SteveT on Sept 10, 2015 16:14:14 GMT
I signed up with Fermented Cabbage as my first p2p platform a couple of months ago and I probably wouldn’t have bothered looking elsewhere until the fixed rate announcement. Now I’d like to try other platforms. I’m looking to try to get something similar to what I was getting with FC i.e., 9-10% (or higher) net return with a good level of diversification and decent liquidity. From first glance, other platforms seem to offer one or two of those criteria but not all of them. In what order would you guys rank other platforms (based on the above plus general recommendation/experience)? Top candidates on my radar are SS, FS, AC and ReBS. If by "decent liquidity" you mean a dynamic SM then FS is no good as they don't have one. That said, I'd recommend both MT and FS as part of a diversified portfolio (the loans on both are only 6 months). SS probably top of the list given your criteria with AC next (if they ever manage to bring forward the new loans in the pipeline, but you can build slowly via the SM in the meantime). ReBS is a good way to get frustrated veeeery slooooowly.
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Post by biscuitbri on Sept 10, 2015 16:16:13 GMT
I am in the process of moving to FK and Lending Crowd. FK is very low on auctions and the SM's rates seem low.
Lending crowd are new (less than one year old) but lovely people to deal with and keen as mustard to grow.
At the moment the auctions can spread over 3 or 4 weeks because, I assume, the relatively low number of lenders mean they are giving each loan the best possible chance and there is a degree of underwriting to fill the loan. If, as has been said by other members, this is by a backer then good luck to them - it shows a level of confidence in their due diligence.
Today I have achieved 12.5% on a B+ loan over 36 months so I think they are worth a punt.
Several names I recognise from FC seem to agree.
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bjorn
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Post by bjorn on Sept 10, 2015 16:26:07 GMT
Lending crowd are new (less than one year old) but lovely people to deal with and keen as mustard to grow. On which point, I had noted their £100 incentive for investing £1000. Tempting - that's 10% straight off!
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SteveT
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Post by SteveT on Sept 10, 2015 16:40:13 GMT
This afternoon I officially gave up bidding on new FC SME auctions, having successfully done so in a structured way over an extended period. I was originally going to continue until they finally turned the lights out on the auctions but there are already too many better places for my idle cash to hang out so it's now "game over" a couple of weeks early and I'll withdraw my speculative bidding funds tomorrow / Monday. I'll probably still pick up some property loans for the CB (in my personal account) and perhaps the odd E if one happens to be live when I log in but that's it for me tracking auctions on a rolling basis. Feels a bit weird not even bothering to click on new loan listings but I'll soon get used to it! I'll now run down my loan book over the next 6 months and may even consider keeping one or two of the better ones a bit longer than that (or maybe not; I do so HATE defaults). So a (partial at least) farewell to FC, the platform so confident of its mass-market future that it doesn't want my money any more.
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Post by GSV3MIaC on Sept 10, 2015 16:45:12 GMT
Au revoir then Stevet .. been fun while it lasted. Will we be seeing you over at Lending Crowd?
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SteveT
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Post by SteveT on Sept 10, 2015 16:52:54 GMT
Au revoir then Stevet .. been fun while it lasted. Will we be seeing you over at Lending Crowd? I'll certainly be taking a look. Why do you like it (over some the more established alternatives)?
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pikestaff
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Post by pikestaff on Sept 10, 2015 17:27:53 GMT
Now that the interesting (sic) people will be moving out of FC we will need a new portal to play with. I'm going to assume everyone has a bit of AC, MT, RS, FS just because they are simple enough for me to understand, I understand that some of them have had their problems (defaults, software etc) some of which I have encountered in the past year , however assuming I need a new portal can you give me advice on how the following face up on 1) Defaults 2) Software complexity/quality 3) Loan flow a) SS b) FK c) ABL rate d) ReBS e) LC f) TC Advice anyone?  Coming late to this thread because I've been out of FC for a long time (except for the defaults). Nobody else seems to have spoken up for TC so I will. Platform-wide the default rate is quite low and they seem to have a lower percentage in the "sick bay" than AC. However the quality of the security is more variable than on AC so the average recovery on those that default is likely to be lower. If you do go for TC it pays to read the loan proposals and Q&A and be selective. It's worth noting that the mix of loans has changed significantly over the last 18 months so "past performance may not be a guide to the future". One of the sponsors used to bring a lot of loans to business turnaround situations. A few too many of these went sour. We are now seeing fewer of them and more loans on property developments (as well as loans to real businesses, many with property as security, and green investments). There is now rather too much property for my taste, but I seem to be in the minority. The current software is slow and not very intuitive. It takes a lot of clicks to get anywhere and a surprising amount of data processing requires human input which means transactions are slow to hit the website. However, there is a lot of depth to the interface including a full nominal ledger. It's about to change completely. An all-new system based on REBS software is expected shortly, possibly by the end of the month. There are a lot of people hoping the changeover goes well! Deal flow is a lot better than on AC. I currently have 3x as much on TC as on AC, mainly because the deal flow is so much better. I struggle to get invested on AC. One weakness of the deal flow is that a lot of the loans are to repeat/related borrowers so there are fewer unique borrowers than one might like. However, that is more of an issue for longer-standing lenders. Historically TC has been run on a shoestring and this has showed in all kinds of ways but especially in communications and the software. It's been a drag on growth over the last year or so and some lenders have got unhappy and voted with their feet. However, the flipside of being run on a shoestring is there's more left on the plate for lenders and it's been consistently my best performing p2p platform. Recently an outside investor (ESO Capital) has taken majority control of TC and there have beem a number of new hires. There are signs that things are changing for the better but I do not expect the fruits of this to be fully visible for a while. I like TC despite its foibles and would happily recommend it. But is now the right time to start? It might be better to wait until the new software is up and running.
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grahamg
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Post by grahamg on Sept 10, 2015 17:32:14 GMT
Lending crowd are new (less than one year old) but lovely people to deal with and keen as mustard to grow. On which point, I had noted their £100 incentive for investing £1000. Tempting - that's 10% straight off! I don't see that on their site do you have a link ?
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bjorn
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Post by bjorn on Sept 10, 2015 18:32:51 GMT
On which point, I had noted their £100 incentive for investing £1000. Tempting - that's 10% straight off! I don't see that on their site do you have a link ? I was going by the table here: cashback.p2pmoney.co.uk/ which has it as the most generous cashback in town at the mo. And seems to be verified by the Ts & Cs on their site here: www.lendingcrowd.com/terms-and-conditions/Have to lend out by end of Sept, which would mean picking up quite a bit from the SM.
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Post by bracknellboy on Sept 10, 2015 18:44:38 GMT
Nobody else seems to have spoken up for TC so I will. ...... the flipside of being run on a shoestring is there's more left on the plate for lenders and it's been consistently my best performing p2p platform. shoosh, or they'll all be heading over there.  For those of a nervous disposition or prone to go blue in the face at the smallest problem when it comes to IT updates and P2P, now is most definitely not the time to start dipping your toes in. Thankfully the team and the supplier for the soon to come system have changed (for the Better  gulp, fingers crossed) but when TC had its last major upgrade (how long ago now ?) we all got to learn what its defintion of 'Rolbac' was, and it wasn't the same as AC users experienced yesterday. The proof will be in the pudding, but given they are doing a complete technology change, I'm (understandly) more than a little nervous. I do hope that when they have got this done and bedded down, tehy start to be active on here.
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nick
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Post by nick on Sept 11, 2015 12:06:49 GMT
Now that the interesting (sic) people will be moving out of FC we will need a new portal to play with. I'm going to assume everyone has a bit of AC, MT, RS, FS just because they are simple enough for me to understand, I understand that some of them have had their problems (defaults, software etc) some of which I have encountered in the past year , however assuming I need a new portal can you give me advice on how the following face up on 1) Defaults 2) Software complexity/quality 3) Loan flow a) SS b) FK c) ABL rate d) ReBS e) LC f) TC Advice anyone? Coming late to this thread because I've been out of FC for a long time (except for the defaults). Nobody else seems to have spoken up for TC so I will. Platform-wide the default rate is quite low and they seem to have a lower percentage in the "sick bay" than AC. However the quality of the security is more variable than on AC so the average recovery on those that default is likely to be lower. If you do go for TC it pays to read the loan proposals and Q&A and be selective. It's worth noting that the mix of loans has changed significantly over the last 18 months so "past performance may not be a guide to the future". One of the sponsors used to bring a lot of loans to business turnaround situations. A few too many of these went sour. We are now seeing fewer of them and more loans on property developments (as well as loans to real businesses, many with property as security, and green investments). There is now rather too much property for my taste, but I seem to be in the minority. The current software is slow and not very intuitive. It takes a lot of clicks to get anywhere and a surprising amount of data processing requires human input which means transactions are slow to hit the website. However, there is a lot of depth to the interface including a full nominal ledger. It's about to change completely. An all-new system based on REBS software is expected shortly, possibly by the end of the month. There are a lot of people hoping the changeover goes well! Deal flow is a lot better than on AC. I currently have 3x as much on TC as on AC, mainly because the deal flow is so much better. I struggle to get invested on AC. One weakness of the deal flow is that a lot of the loans are to repeat/related borrowers so there are fewer unique borrowers than one might like. However, that is more of an issue for longer-standing lenders. Historically TC has been run on a shoestring and this has showed in all kinds of ways but especially in communications and the software. It's been a drag on growth over the last year or so and some lenders have got unhappy and voted with their feet. However, the flipside of being run on a shoestring is there's more left on the plate for lenders and it's been consistently my best performing p2p platform. Recently an outside investor (ESO Capital) has taken majority control of TC and there have beem a number of new hires. There are signs that things are changing for the better but I do not expect the fruits of this to be fully visible for a while. I like TC despite its foibles and would happily recommend it. But is now the right time to start? It might be better to wait until the new software is up and running. I was invested on TC for about 4-6 months 18 months ago. At the time, I found the website/interface extremely convoluted and non-intuitive. In fact I become so frustrated wrongly navigating the website that I pulled the plug and sold all my investments at a loss just avoid enduring their website ever again!!! It was a shame as the deal flow was good and the information package provided to members was a lot more significant than you get on any other P2P site i've looked at. Therefore I would strongly advise anyone looking to invest on TC to wait until they implement their new system. I've read that this will be a white label version of REBS' site. Hopefully the site won't be as glacial as REBS, but is should be more intuitive to navigate and use and thus infinitely more bearable than TC's current system (the memories of which still shivers down my back!)
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jonah
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Post by jonah on Sept 11, 2015 13:53:12 GMT
Does TC still have the 1k minimum loan bid size?
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pikestaff
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Post by pikestaff on Sept 11, 2015 15:47:12 GMT
Yes it does and it appears that there are no plans to change. You can achieve more diversity through their "TLC" product (ThinCats Lending Club) which spreads your investment across (typically) 10 loans (more as funds are reinvested). I started off with TLCs but fairly soon decided to invest directly instead. Things you need to be aware of with TLCs include:
- they issue a new TLC roughly once a month
- some pay a 7% running yield with the balance at maturity, others roll up and pay all interest at maturity
- there is a 0.5% pa admin charge, taken at maturity
- there may be significant dead time while the TLC invests its funds
- there may be some risk of adverse selection in loans (unproven)
- information on their performance is not as timely or reliable as it should be (one of the things that I hope the new hires will sort out)
- partly as a result, secondary market liquidity is poor and you may not get full value if you sell.
I'm rather expecting that TC will launch a new "mass market" investment product to replace TLCs, before ISAs come on stream.
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Steerpike
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Post by Steerpike on Sept 11, 2015 16:01:00 GMT
Yes it does and it appears that there are no plans to change. You can achieve more diversity through their "TLC" product (ThinCats Lending Club) which spreads your investment across (typically) 10 loans (more as funds are reinvested). I started off with TLCs but fairly soon decided to invest directly instead. Things you need to be aware of with TLCs include: - they issue a new TLC roughly once a month - some pay a 7% running yield with the balance at maturity, others roll up and pay all interest at maturity - there is a 0.5% pa admin charge, taken at maturity - there may be significant dead time while the TLC invests its funds - there may be some risk of adverse selection in loans (unproven) - information on their performance is not as timely or reliable as it should be (one of the things that I hope the new hires will sort out) - partly as a result, secondary market liquidity is poor and you may not get full value if you sell. I'm rather expecting that TC will launch a new "mass market" investment product to replace TLCs, before ISAs come on stream. That looks like an excellent summary, in addition, I think that there may be a potential benefit arising from investments made on behalf of the TLC that qualify for (more) cashback because the sums invested may be larger than one might do outside of the TLC.
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For those of a nervous disposition or prone to go blue in the face at the smallest problem when it comes to IT updates and P2P, now is most definitely not the time to start dipping your toes in. Thankfully the team and the supplier for the soon to come system have changed (for the Better 
