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Post by domUP on Aug 5, 2015 17:55:16 GMT
As long as the loan updating is manual the problem I see is that loans that sell out very quickly, eg SS and MT, may be gone before they even appear on this site. Unless of course the other platform releases them to investUp early. Hi Webwiz, You're quite right, this is a small problem that we have come across - fortunately, with SS, they often notify everyone of new pitches before they go live, so we're able to prepare our system for it, and have it go live very shortly after. We're currently developing API's with many of these platforms though, which will eliminate these issues, and you'll be able to bid on the pitches just as if your bidding on the underlying platform. The first 3 of these are due to go live over the next couple of weeks. Best, Dom
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rogerbu
Member of DD Central
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Post by rogerbu on Aug 5, 2015 19:01:02 GMT
@dominvestup I am obviously not yet getting it yet.
If I invest via you onto a platform (lets say AC for example). I think that I understand
I transfer money to you
You safely keep it until I invest into an AC loan
You transfer the required amount to AC -
Now I don't understand
When AC receives and credits the amount to the loan, does AC credit it to :-
My normal AC account? or
A generic Investup AC account? or
A new AC Account known to AC to be an Investup account?
or something else.
When AC issues interest and principle repayments
Does it:-
Stay in AC?
Get drawn back to my Investup account and get aggregated with interest from other platforms?
Get paid direct to my bank account?
Will you be providing downloadable XLS reports of all interest and capital expected accross all loans via Investup?
Will you be providing downloadable XLS reports of all Interest & Capital received?
These questions will do for the moment - thanks
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Post by domUP on Aug 5, 2015 19:53:14 GMT
Great questions Rogerbu.
I will take one at a time, as you've asked them.
Firstly, with regards to transferring money and bidding, you have two options. For both, you will first need to credit your UP account. Once this is cleared, you can, as a first option, either bid directly onto an AC deal for example. UP then takes this instruction and transfers the funds to AC and places the bid for you (I’ll cover the accounts next). Alternatively, as your second option, you can transfer a lump sum from your UP balance to a platform such as AC, and then use these funds to place one or more bids over time.
With regards to the accounts, at present, UP will create you a new account with the platform. These details will be specific to UP and our system will use this to execute all of your instructions. Over the next few months, we are working on a system for you to link your existing accounts into your UP portfolio - this will enable you to manage all of your investments, both on your existing account, and your new UP account, all from one platform (and any other of your other platform accounts too).
Repayments, both interest and principal, will be repaid into your AC account (in this example). All of your platform balances will be visible from your UP account, and you then have the choice to reinvest these repayments into other AC pitches, or transfer them back to your UP central balance. All money transactions, whether on the underlying platform, or in and out of your central balance, will be visible from your UP wallet area.
Full reports will be available to download very shortly. We haven’t focused on individual platform reports, but this can be included if required. I would like to add though that we started UP with the intention of giving you an easy to use, but still detailed, portfolio management area to reduce the need for you to keep excel spread-sheets and paperwork. We will though of course always allow manual downloads of all the data.
I hope that helps a little with your questions.
With this being V1 of the platform, we are naturally always interested in feature requests from investors, so if there is anything you feel would enhance your investing and management experience, do please let me know and we will do our best to build them.
Best,
Dom
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niceguy37
Member of DD Central
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Post by niceguy37 on Aug 6, 2015 11:06:26 GMT
May I compliment you, Dom, on your very prompt responses, and quick implementation of suggestions.
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shimself
Member of DD Central
Posts: 2,563
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Post by shimself on Aug 6, 2015 11:20:28 GMT
Can you explain why someone like me with accounts with most of the platforms already should join you?
Just to check, I was thinking that I had to give you my logons for the various sites with whom I have accounts TC AC etc. Which I just won't do. Please tell me I'm wrong.
Tha faq says I need to be over 18 and have a UK bank account (which I do), but I thought I also need a UK address (which I don't), please confirm
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Post by chris on Aug 6, 2015 11:37:03 GMT
Just to check, I was thinking that I had to give you my logons for the various sites with whom I have accounts TC AC etc. Which I just won't do. Please tell me I'm wrong. If platforms support it, and we will in Q4 this year, then you can authorise a third party platform to access your account without handing over your login details. This is usually via giving the third party an API key that authenticates to your account. That way we could in theory allow for more granular control over what those platforms can and can't do with your account. For example you could authorise them to deposit funds, buy into loans, and collect summary information about your account but not to sell anything, make withdrawals, or change any of your credentials. AC as a platform is still in the planning stages of supporting all of this. It's something we've been meaning to do for quite a while but other priorities keep jumping ahead. It's rapidly moving up our priority queue though and the more lender demand there is the sooner it's likely to happen.
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shimself
Member of DD Central
Posts: 2,563
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Post by shimself on Aug 6, 2015 11:46:00 GMT
Just to check, I was thinking that I had to give you my logons for the various sites with whom I have accounts TC AC etc. Which I just won't do. Please tell me I'm wrong. If platforms support it, and we will in Q4 this year, then you can authorise a third party platform to access your account without handing over your login details. This is usually via giving the third party an API key that authenticates to your account. That way we could in theory allow for more granular control over what those platforms can and can't do with your account. For example you could authorise them to deposit funds, buy into loans, and collect summary information about your account but not to sell anything, make withdrawals, or change any of your credentials. AC as a platform is still in the planning stages of supporting all of this. It's something we've been meaning to do for quite a while but other priorities keep jumping ahead. It's rapidly moving up our priority queue though and the more lender demand there is the sooner it's likely to happen. I'm coming at this the other way; there is no way on this earth I want any single system anywhere to be able to access multiple accounts. Lastpass got hacked a few weeks ago, it's just far too dangerous (no disrespect to your security, but stuff happens). If I can work through you without compromising my existing accounts then maybe I'm interested.
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Post by domUP on Aug 6, 2015 12:05:15 GMT
Can you explain why someone like me with accounts with most of the platforms already should join you? Just to check, I was thinking that I had to give you my logons for the various sites with whom I have accounts TC AC etc. Which I just won't do. Please tell me I'm wrong. Tha faq says I need to be over 18 and have a UK bank account (which I do), but I thought I also need a UK address (which I don't), please confirm Hi Shimself, Thanks for getting in touch and completely valid points. I’ll answer them in order of the asking, if I may. If you want a single consolidated account with one provider, with standardised information, than UP is for you. We will also be working to build our collection of sites over the next few months, bringing you more and more of the market onto one platform. It’s worth noting we aim to cover all asset types, as well as offer the Innovate Finance ISA, enabling you to invest across all sites. I’m happy to say that you absolutely do not need to give any of your current account information to UP. At present, there is no option for you to link your current platform account into investUP. As Chris (AC) kindly mentioned, sites are looking at this, and we are working with a number of the platforms we partner with to offer this ability to 'Link Accounts'. Currently there is no defined way of how you will link your account, but we won't be by us asking for your username and password. At the moment, we create you a new account, which will be unique to the UP system, and use this account to carry out all of your instructions through the UP site. When there is an option to link your existing account, and if you request this, we will merge these two accounts together on the UP site, giving you a complete view of your existing account, and any new loans or investments you have made. I can also confirm that we accept EU addresses and I believe four platforms we work with on the P2P side accept EU investors, meaning only their deals will be on display to you. For the time being we are unable to accept non-EU residents. I will make this clearer in our FAQs. I hope this answers your questions and concerns. Is there anything else you'd like us to do to give you some additional comfort on the matter? Best, Dom
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Post by domUP on Aug 6, 2015 12:07:29 GMT
May I compliment you, Dom, on your very prompt responses, and quick implementation of suggestions. Thank you so much niceguy37 - although I am off to Berlin this evening for a long weekend so my responses may be slightly delayed 
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niceguy37
Member of DD Central
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Likes: 254
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Post by niceguy37 on Aug 13, 2015 12:57:56 GMT
I've made a few purchases of Assetz Capital loans via investUP, and they've gone through without any hitches at all.
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Post by domUP on Aug 14, 2015 14:50:23 GMT
Dear all, I'm happy to announce that investUP's waiting list has now been removed and now there is free access to all. Once again may I reiterate the following: If you sign UP to our site at the moment you will be using Version 1 of the platform. As with many V1's it is not perfect and it really represents proof of concept for the team and I. A few issues which you should be aware of: - Transferring money from UP to the underlying sites takes time as each site has different methods for reconciling funds. We are working on ways to speed this up with our crowdfunding partners.
- Depositing to UP can only be done with Bank transfer. This is a short term issue and in a few months pretty much instant deposits will be possible. Apologies in advance if you experience delays with the current version.
Behind the scenes we are working hard on speeding things up, building Version 2 and of course working on how to offer the Innovative Finance ISA. Over the next few months I'm looking forward to being able to update you on the progress we're making. Very best of regards, Dom |
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ribs
Probably not James Marshall
Posts: 148
Likes: 151
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Post by ribs on Aug 15, 2015 18:37:09 GMT
This is a nice idea. I've just signed up. I love tech ideas like this.
Sadly, I quickly discovered investUP might not be for me. This kind of investing (where you pick the businesses directly) is a bit beyond me, as I don't feel confident in doing my own 'due diligence' when investing in such a way. Whilst I appreciate some people love the process of selecting businesses to loan to, it's not for me.
I dipped my toe (£100) with funding circle, but even then I used their autobid system and went for low risk settings. I look forward to seeing something like that on investUP in the future, then I'll probably use it. Maybe. Possibly.
I also look forward to linking existing accounts in the future, as previously mentioned. With the condition that the account still exists in it's own right, so if I close my investUP account, or the service shuts down, I can still just log in without any worries.
I'd love to see ratesetter/zopa and their ilk (the 'easy' option for idiots like me where you make no difficult decisions) to be a part of this, but I understand that investUP's goals are probably not the same as mine.
One thing I don't understand; what's the business model? How are you going to be funding this now and in the future? I tend to get suspicious if the product is 'free'.
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Post by domUP on Aug 16, 2015 11:53:59 GMT
Hi Ribs,
Thanks for your comments and love the fact you get the tech!
UP has launched V1 with a model based on catering for the active investor, where investors find the deals they like and do their own due diligence. Version 2 of the site is very much aimed at your needs as a more passive investor. Here we will be launching auto-investing tools, which will take your money, after you set your risk profile, and invest across all our partner sites. Expect to see something akin to Funding Circle’s auto-bid tools but for all sites. Also for most of the team, this would be our preferred option.
The current 'pick your own deals' option (or self-execution as we call it) is and always will be free on UP. Our revenue plans are longer term and revolve around creating automation tools for the more passive investors out there, as well as around the Innovative Finance ISA.
Re: your comments on linking accounts; this is something, which we are working on at the moment so your feedback is valuable. Stay tuned...
I hope this clears up some of your questions and that you'll give UP a whirl once the our auto-bid tools are UP and running later this year.
Dom
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ribs
Probably not James Marshall
Posts: 148
Likes: 151
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Post by ribs on Aug 16, 2015 15:24:13 GMT
Hello Dom,
Thanks for your reply, especially on a Sunday.
Version 2 does indeed sound interesting to me, as a mainly passive investor.
Would I pay for it? I'm not sure. If it was cheap enough, and it could be part of an ISA wrapper, thereby having several p2p accounts within a one ISA wrapper, that might be enough to sway me. Maybe. I might even run down my existing accounts to move them to investUP is I would ISA wrapper the whole lot.
I'll keep an eye on this one.
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Post by domUP on Aug 16, 2015 17:16:07 GMT
Hello Dom, Thanks for your reply, especially on a Sunday. Version 2 does indeed sound interesting to me, as a mainly passive investor. Would I pay for it? I'm not sure. If it was cheap enough, and it could be part of an ISA wrapper, thereby having several p2p accounts within a one ISA wrapper, that might be enough to sway me. Maybe. I might even run down my existing accounts to move them to investUP is I would ISA wrapper the whole lot. I'll keep an eye on this one. You're very welcome Ribs - I really appreciate your insight here, thank you!
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