baz657
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Post by baz657 on Aug 7, 2015 9:54:56 GMT
I can't remember the exact wording but it went something like this....
So in the worst case senario the LTV would actually be 101.6%? And this is at 10%, interest only for the first year followed by a 15 year repayment profile?? Have I read this right???
If so this isn't one for me.
Perhaps I shouldn't have added the last sentence but being told that "The content was not a question specific to this loan but a comment / feedback. Please direct comments / feedback to the enquiries@assetzcapital.co.uk e-mail address" is perhaps pushing the limits.
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oldgrumpy
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Post by oldgrumpy on Aug 7, 2015 10:54:06 GMT
Some wag could just rephrase the whole comment as a direct question  |
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ilmoro
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'Wondering which of the bu***rs to blame, and watching for pigs on the wing.' - Pink Floyd
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Post by ilmoro on Aug 7, 2015 10:55:11 GMT
I can't remember the exact wording but it went something like this.... So in the worst case senario the LTV would actually be 101.6%? And this is at 10%, interest only for the first year followed by a 15 year repayment profile?? Have I read this right???
If so this isn't one for me.
Perhaps I shouldn't have added the last sentence but being told that "The content was not a question specific to this loan but a comment / feedback. Please direct comments / feedback to the enquiries@assetzcapital.co.uk e-mail address" is perhaps pushing the limits. Not unusual in my experience (observing more than participating). All that happens is the comment gets slightly reworded and reposted - sometimes ad finitum - almost seems to be adding workload at times, more than just responding to the original post
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jonno
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nil satis nisi optimum
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Post by jonno on Aug 7, 2015 11:16:12 GMT
Rightly or wrongly, I've more or less given up bothering to ask anything anymore.Partly because of the pathetic approach to them by AC, and partly because I invest so relatively little in each loan these days I'm really not all that bothered any more  |
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ilmoro
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'Wondering which of the bu***rs to blame, and watching for pigs on the wing.' - Pink Floyd
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Post by ilmoro on Aug 7, 2015 12:08:01 GMT
Well theres irony. Just had the email about the new Q&A rules. Wonder who sent that one out - whoever its was didnt check the date in the heading 7th JULY - really!  |
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Post by lynnanthony on Aug 7, 2015 13:22:54 GMT
I notice, from the email, that there is no channel for questions about how AC are handling the loan. Questions like "Why are AC not enforcing X since the repayments are stopped" etc. I haven't seen anything that suggests that Q&A cannot be continued to be used for that? (It seems the obvious place for them.)
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Post by chris on Aug 7, 2015 14:00:40 GMT
I notice, from the email, that there is no channel for questions about how AC are handling the loan. Questions like "Why are AC not enforcing X since the repayments are stopped" etc. I haven't seen anything that suggests that Q&A cannot be continued to be used for that? (It seems the obvious place for them.) Would seem sensible to me. The various customer services email addresses also go straight to the customer services team and not anywhere near the web master. The team are as responsible for timely responses to those emails as they are to the Q&A, and you can always escalate to myself or andrewholgate if you feel lenders are not being looked after properly by the customer services team. We've always been one of the most approachable and open lending platforms with our engagement with this forum and I'll personally be unhappy and will involve myself should the rest of the team not continue in that tradition. That said the Q&A isn't the place for a multi-paragraph rant that happens to have a vague question as its last line - something that occasionally happens. It's a communication channel with the platform to ask specific questions so that we can answer in public and on record. It's not a method for broadcasting feelings, views or opinions to other lenders or to hold a discussion, and part of the motivation for the changes is to help deal with those types of post more efficiently freeing up our time to answer the genuine questions.
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baz657
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Post by baz657 on Aug 7, 2015 14:22:22 GMT
All I was asking was if I had read the credit and valuation reports correctly. I've already admitted that in retrospect that perhaps I shouldn't have made the personal comment that if it was the case this particular loan wasn't for me. Without the comment would the question have been answered and not deleted?
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Mike
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Post by Mike on Aug 7, 2015 14:29:11 GMT
All I was asking was if I had read the credit and valuation reports correctly. I thought that in order to know the valuations in this case, you actually had to have read the credit report incorrectly in order to be correct? Obviously, not something that needed clarification ... ... ...
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Post by chris on Aug 7, 2015 15:14:22 GMT
All I was asking was if I had read the credit and valuation reports correctly. I've already admitted that in retrospect that perhaps I shouldn't have made the personal comment that if it was the case this particular loan wasn't for me. Without the comment would the question have been answered and not deleted? It's a tricky one. It could have been clearer and not had the personal commentary, which would have helped, but I have highlighted your post to the customer services team as an example of a question I, as a director, don't want to see deleted unanswered. In my view your valid question is the bit in red. The bit in blue could be reworked into a question, but as it is its really reflecting your opinion of the loan based upon a speculated positive answer to the first question. The rest in black isn't asking a question of the platform and broadcasts your opinion. If you'd just stuck to the bit in red then we could have come back with a constructive response either confirming or refuting your calculated LTV, and if we confirmed it we could have explained our methodology and justified the pricing. By immediately following with your opinion you make that harder to do without a back and forth discussion, something that the Q&A is not supposed to enable. IMHO it's best to keep questions direct, without speculation or hyperbole, and to make them as clear and brief as possible. There'll be no excuse to delete them that way, and if the customer service team fails to answer satisfactorily or still censors fair but difficult to answer questions then it's much easier to escalate to myself or Andy. You can always try approaching it from the other point of view. If you were sat there trying to help people as best you can with the information you have in front of you, and without authority to argue over opinions, is this a fair and reasonable question for you to have to answer.
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Mike
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Post by Mike on Aug 7, 2015 15:37:05 GMT
IMHO it's best to keep questions direct, IMHO its best to keep answers direct. They rarely seem to be...
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ilmoro
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'Wondering which of the bu***rs to blame, and watching for pigs on the wing.' - Pink Floyd
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Post by ilmoro on Aug 7, 2015 15:53:47 GMT
All I was asking was if I had read the credit and valuation reports correctly. I've already admitted that in retrospect that perhaps I shouldn't have made the personal comment that if it was the case this particular loan wasn't for me. Without the comment would the question have been answered and not deleted? It's a tricky one. It could have been clearer and not had the personal commentary, which would have helped, but I have highlighted your post to the customer services team as an example of a question I, as a director, don't want to see deleted unanswered. In my view your valid question is the bit in red. The bit in blue could be reworked into a question, but as it is its really reflecting your opinion of the loan based upon a speculated positive answer to the first question. The rest in black isn't asking a question of the platform and broadcasts your opinion. If you'd just stuck to the bit in red then we could have come back with a constructive response either confirming or refuting your calculated LTV, and if we confirmed it we could have explained our methodology and justified the pricing. By immediately following with your opinion you make that harder to do without a back and forth discussion, something that the Q&A is not supposed to enable. IMHO it's best to keep questions direct, without speculation or hyperbole, and to make them as clear and brief as possible. There'll be no excuse to delete them that way, and if the customer service team fails to answer satisfactorily or still censors fair but difficult to answer questions then it's much easier to escalate to myself or Andy. You can always try approaching it from the other point of view. If you were sat there trying to help people as best you can with the information you have in front of you, and without authority to argue over opinions, is this a fair and reasonable question for you to have to answer. From the other perspective, perhaps the customer service team/loan monitoring teams should consider what information lenders are likely to want, what info they would expect to see if they were lenders, when providing updates/answers. Quite often it seems that they havent taken the circumstances to their logical conclusion. As an example there is an update today on #123 saying payment has not been made. Previous communication has indicated that failure to make this payment prior to the grace period elapsing would result in the loan going back into default. So logic would suggest that the update should include a confirmation that the loan is once again default, possibly with a statement of the default rate & measures necessary for the default to be lifted. As it is this info will end up being requested via the Q&A. Most of the recent questions on this loan are seeking or clarifying fairly obvious pieces of info which reasonably could have been expected to have been provided originally - was the buffer used, is the loan in/not in default, when would go back into default, outstanding payments update. So therefore 30/7 update should ideally say: payment was made from buffer, borrowing being chased, payment to be made by 6/8 or loan in default at +3% until payment made, update 7/8 Today update should read: spoken to borrower, payment not made, loan in default from 6/8 etc, continue to chase, update x/y or sooner Maybe my brain just works differently but these are the kind of Qs that immediately occur to me when I see an update
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Post by chris on Aug 7, 2015 16:05:49 GMT
From the other perspective, perhaps the customer service team/loan monitoring teams should consider what information lenders are likely to want, what info they would expect to see if they were lenders, when providing updates/answers. Quite often it seems that they havent taken the circumstances to their logical conclusion. As an example there is an update today on #123 saying payment has not been made. Previous communication has indicated that failure to make this payment prior to the grace period elapsing would result in the loan going back into default. So logic would suggest that the update should include a confirmation that the loan is once again default, possibly with a statement of the default rate & measures necessary for the default to be lifted. As it is this info will end up being requested via the Q&A. Most of the recent questions on this loan are seeking or clarifying fairly obvious pieces of info which reasonably could have been expected to have been provided originally - was the buffer used, is the loan in/not in default, when would go back into default, outstanding payments update. So therefore 30/7 update should ideally say: payment was made from buffer, borrowing being chased, payment to be made by 6/8 or loan in default at +3% until payment made, update 7/8 Today update should read: spoken to borrower, payment not made, loan in default from 6/8 etc, continue to chase, update x/y or sooner Maybe my brain just works differently but these are the kind of Qs that immediately occur to me when I see an update Completely agree with you, and usually it's a consequence of a manual process. After the next big update to the marketplace, with an overhaul of the MLIA and introduction of another investment account, I'll be turning my attention to systemising the credit and monitoring side of the business. That will include recording customer communications, having a timeline of monitoring checks being due and then completed, having a full history of credit and monitoring events, etc. It's my aim to expose as much of that as possible to lenders to give transparency to what we're doing and show all the good work that goes on behind the scenes instead of it only being seen when something goes wrong. Systemisation in this way should also bring consistency to all we do on that side of the business. It's not going to be a quick fix as there's a lot of work that needs to go into it, but the fruits of that project will be seen over the next few months.
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Post by chris on Aug 7, 2015 17:52:51 GMT
paul123 - at a guess I would suspect it's because we're not in direct control of the recoveries process, the receiver would be, and we can only really relay the information they've given us. That way, as with the valuations, all conveyed information comes from a professional organisation with appropriate experience and indemnity insurance. It's also a no win situation for us. We're being asked to take an educated guess based on the same information already given to lenders. If we get it wrong and give a low estimate and then criticism starts before the recovery has even happened (something you can see today in the Anglesey thread where an auction valuer has given a low estimate as a starting price even though that's not the recovered amount and the LPA receiver hasn't even agreed to take the property to auction yet); give a high estimate and you leave yourself open to criticism if that value isn't achieved. Couple that to lenders wanting to be able to trade whilst the loan is in default, and therefore acting upon your educated guess, and you end up with a messy complicated situation. I will check though and make sure there aren't any legal reasons or other possibilities that I haven't covered.
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Post by chris on Aug 7, 2015 18:04:10 GMT
I think AC giving quantitative estimates of recovery rates for loans could open up a can of worms since such an estimate could be construed as investment advice, especially if a secondary market existed where a position could be taken. I have no idea whether it's possible to give such advice on a loan which is treated as a 'simple debt' rather than a security. In the fixed income security markets, however, such recommendations are given regularly by sales/analysts/traders. All of those, however, would be FCA regulated as CF21 Investment Advisers with an extensive disclaimer backing such a view. No individual in AC (or TC) seems FCA regulated (which makes their firm's interim permission somewhat meaningless but anyway ...). . Recent equity-investors in AC, however, might not want AC taking that risk since financial services are excluded from raising capital under the EIS scheme; AC is currently still eligible since it is acting purely as an agent. I would also note that TC has always taken the stance that it cannot ever give investment advice. That's the same reason we've never used a shield rating or risk band system, as our interpretation of the regulations is that doing so is providing advice and at some point could face a legal challenge. We present the loan, we give lenders the information, it's up to lenders to interpret that information and make investment decisions.
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