Post by chris on Jan 21, 2014 14:21:33 GMT
We have just set live a new pre-bidding facility that allows all lenders to tell the system to bid on auctions whilst they are being previewed. Prebids are not the same as regular bids or shadow bids, they are merely an instruction to the system to try and place normal bids the instant the auction is opened. They do not reserve funds nor do they have any priority in the primary market.
The system checks each minute for auctions that are becoming live and as soon as it detects a situation where pre-bids can be converted into real bids it will iterate through each pre-bid in the order they were placed. If the lender has sufficient funds, and the pre-bid meets the rules of the auction (which are checked when pre-bids are created so it shouldn't be an issue), then the pre-bid is converted into a real bid with funds reserved as usual. If a lender does not have sufficient funds then the system will flag this on their dashboard and the pre-bid is skipped. If loans are oversubscribed (not checked when creating a pre-bid) then it may still be worth creating a pre-bid as it is possible that some people ahead of you in the queue will have insufficient cleared funds at the start of the auction and therefore their pre-bids will be skipped in preference for yours. As pre-bids are converted into bids at the point and auction opens any bids placed before then (by site administrators) will still take precedence however I expect that practice to be phased out in preference for registering pre-bids instead.
For now we are limiting pre-bids to auctions that are larger than £250k as it is not our intention for pre-bidding to become a mandatory part of bidding and so as to avoid over subscription of the auctions. We have developed much wider changes to the primary markets that would have addressed this but after canvasing a few of our existing lenders these changes polarised opinion with some loving the ideas and others expressing reservations so we have decided to delay their introduction whilst we reconsider the best (and fairest) approach to bidding. I'll update you in due course on these changes.
You can view your existing pre-bids in the my account section as well as on each loan. Pre-bids may be deleted and new ones created as you see fit - unlike a real bid they are not a firm commitment just an instruction to the system to try and place a bid when it is able.
Pre-bids that cannot be placed, for whatever reason, when an auction starts will be rechecked each hour. For example if insufficient funds are available to place a pre-bid but then a loan repayment comes in that covers the shortfall, when the system next checks it will place the bid for you.
I shouldn't need to say it but we do have the ability to ban users from the pre-bid system so if someone routinely abuses the system (e.g. placing £1m pre-bids on every auction) then they will have their access removed.
We have also updated the horseshoe graph so that pre-bids are shown and the tooltips for each segment give more information (actual amount as well as percentage). When an auction is being previewed the graphs are now present but are grey shaded to reflect that the auction is in preview.
Finally the Q&A system has been updated so that questions and answers show the date and time of when they were asked / answered, with the "x days ago" being displayed in a tooltip if you hover the mouse over the date. Also Q&A questions should now be posted automatically if the questioner is fully registered and ID checked (so that abusers can be blocked / banned from the site).
I'm around for the rest of the afternoon to monitor the system and to answer any questions you have on this thread. An official newsletter should be going out shortly which will include details of these changes.
The system checks each minute for auctions that are becoming live and as soon as it detects a situation where pre-bids can be converted into real bids it will iterate through each pre-bid in the order they were placed. If the lender has sufficient funds, and the pre-bid meets the rules of the auction (which are checked when pre-bids are created so it shouldn't be an issue), then the pre-bid is converted into a real bid with funds reserved as usual. If a lender does not have sufficient funds then the system will flag this on their dashboard and the pre-bid is skipped. If loans are oversubscribed (not checked when creating a pre-bid) then it may still be worth creating a pre-bid as it is possible that some people ahead of you in the queue will have insufficient cleared funds at the start of the auction and therefore their pre-bids will be skipped in preference for yours. As pre-bids are converted into bids at the point and auction opens any bids placed before then (by site administrators) will still take precedence however I expect that practice to be phased out in preference for registering pre-bids instead.
For now we are limiting pre-bids to auctions that are larger than £250k as it is not our intention for pre-bidding to become a mandatory part of bidding and so as to avoid over subscription of the auctions. We have developed much wider changes to the primary markets that would have addressed this but after canvasing a few of our existing lenders these changes polarised opinion with some loving the ideas and others expressing reservations so we have decided to delay their introduction whilst we reconsider the best (and fairest) approach to bidding. I'll update you in due course on these changes.
You can view your existing pre-bids in the my account section as well as on each loan. Pre-bids may be deleted and new ones created as you see fit - unlike a real bid they are not a firm commitment just an instruction to the system to try and place a bid when it is able.
Pre-bids that cannot be placed, for whatever reason, when an auction starts will be rechecked each hour. For example if insufficient funds are available to place a pre-bid but then a loan repayment comes in that covers the shortfall, when the system next checks it will place the bid for you.
I shouldn't need to say it but we do have the ability to ban users from the pre-bid system so if someone routinely abuses the system (e.g. placing £1m pre-bids on every auction) then they will have their access removed.
We have also updated the horseshoe graph so that pre-bids are shown and the tooltips for each segment give more information (actual amount as well as percentage). When an auction is being previewed the graphs are now present but are grey shaded to reflect that the auction is in preview.
Finally the Q&A system has been updated so that questions and answers show the date and time of when they were asked / answered, with the "x days ago" being displayed in a tooltip if you hover the mouse over the date. Also Q&A questions should now be posted automatically if the questioner is fully registered and ID checked (so that abusers can be blocked / banned from the site).
I'm around for the rest of the afternoon to monitor the system and to answer any questions you have on this thread. An official newsletter should be going out shortly which will include details of these changes.
