sam i am
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Post by sam i am on Aug 18, 2015 19:31:13 GMT
I think that SS says they charge 1.5% per month on their site somewhere. Plus arrangement fees, plus redemption fees
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registerme
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Post by registerme on Aug 18, 2015 22:23:53 GMT
Is there a way to like every post in a thread in one go? If not chaps and chapesses, please take this as a general like from me  . |
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Post by naturalselection on Aug 19, 2015 4:24:49 GMT
All jokes aside, even automated loan buying and selling would be mitigated if they performed actions using transactions, regardless of how many active (concurrent) users are hitting the databases. I do like Saving Stream, but any financial platform that even gives a hint of not using atomic transactions is a bit scary. Sorry to be dim but I do not understand. can you elucidate? If bots are bidding can't they put in bids faster than the server can process them? No, transactional database systems stop this, going as far as guaranteeing it never happens. For example: if myself and you were bidding on a loan with 500 left; I bid 250 and you 300. Let's assume I get in milliseconds before you; if we're touching the same data in the database it queues up the request sequentially so it's "version of truth" isn't corrupted. If we could both concurrently subscribe to these loan parts in the absence of transactions you'd get results similar to the over subscription issues present currently on SS, which suggests race conditions. This isn't some new exotic and expensive technology advancement; it's been available since the 1970s: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACID - and they're available in the most popular free / open source database systems. Unlike others that have been as kind to suggest they'd merely not design it like this, I'd flat out say it's a massive fook up and should never happen. I do like SS, always responded to support, affiliate bonuses etc. but the tech side is a worry. I develop big data systems and to give you some perspective when I'm testing software on my laptop I can get in the range of 1000s of transactions per second on database queries more complex than what SS will be using and on larger data sets. 500 concurrent users, whilst very nice from a business perspective, really is nothing in this day and age.
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webwiz
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Post by webwiz on Aug 19, 2015 6:58:54 GMT
So, it it was designed properly there would be many cases, during a scrum, when an investor would make an investment, tick the confirmation box, then get an error along the lines of "Sorry, someone else beat you to it".
I have never seen such a message. has anyone else?
What happens to me is that after ticking the investment confirmation box it crashes and then, after reloading, in my "Transactions to date" the bid appears as if it were successful, but with a zero amount.
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Post by brock on Aug 19, 2015 7:15:20 GMT
I think the system suggests that SS and/or underwriters maintain a position in each loan even once the majority is sold to us general punters. There must be some soft target for on-going ownership (much like Mintos which maintains 5% of each loan), which for short-term liquidity purposes on the secondary market, allows for there to be a negative amount available (SS goes slightly short of its long-term soft target). Rather than punters getting an error message, there is some tolerance for SS to be able to go temporarily short to help facilitate a transaction. Personally I am happy it appears to work that way, rather than clicking to confirm a purchase only to be told that I was too slow.
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Post by naturalselection on Aug 19, 2015 8:34:18 GMT
I'm not sure if over subscription makes sense in any instance.
Financial transactions should be exact and isolated. Credit balance and loan purchases should be wrapped in the same transaction.
Behaviourally people might like the current system - with the allowance of over subscription, but my concern is what it implies for the overall technical implementation. If they're not using database transactions, has the website undergone proper security auditing?
I must note, I have developed a simple program to log in and analyse my SS deposits and calculate interests etc. and the figures are correct.
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Aug 19, 2015 8:43:25 GMT
I think that SS says they charge 1.5% per month on their site somewhere. So just shy of 20% APR...
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registerme
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Post by registerme on Aug 19, 2015 9:45:48 GMT
I'm not sure if over subscription makes sense in any instance. Financial transactions should be exact and isolated. Credit balance and loan purchases should be wrapped in the same transaction. Behaviourally people might like the current system - with the allowance of over subscription, but my concern is what it implies for the overall technical implementation. If they're not using database transactions, has the website undergone proper security auditing? I must note, I have developed a simple program to log in and analyse my SS deposits and calculate interests etc. and the figures are correct. I agree with everything you have to say about atomic transactions etc, however what we don't understand is how the (potential?) presence of underwriters impacts things.
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am
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Post by am on Aug 19, 2015 10:19:22 GMT
I think the system suggests that SS and/or underwriters maintain a position in each loan even once the majority is sold to us general punters. There must be some soft target for on-going ownership (much like Mintos which maintains 5% of each loan), which for short-term liquidity purposes on the secondary market, allows for there to be a negative amount available (SS goes slightly short of its long-term soft target). Rather than punters getting an error message, there is some tolerance for SS to be able to go temporarily short to help facilitate a transaction. Personally I am happy it appears to work that way, rather than clicking to confirm a purchase only to be told that I was too slow. SS could work that way, but if that was the case, why did SS take the decision to unroll some of the purchases on yesterday's auctions, as reported on some of the other threads?
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Post by brock on Aug 19, 2015 10:30:52 GMT
I think the system suggests that SS and/or underwriters maintain a position in each loan even once the majority is sold to us general punters. There must be some soft target for on-going ownership (much like Mintos which maintains 5% of each loan), which for short-term liquidity purposes on the secondary market, allows for there to be a negative amount available (SS goes slightly short of its long-term soft target). Rather than punters getting an error message, there is some tolerance for SS to be able to go temporarily short to help facilitate a transaction. Personally I am happy it appears to work that way, rather than clicking to confirm a purchase only to be told that I was too slow. SS could work that way, but if that was the case, why did SS take the decision to unroll some of the purchases on yesterday's auctions, as reported on some of the other threads? Good point. I had not seen the other threads where that was reported. It could still fit with my suggestion that there are soft targets with a tolerance threshold. Perhaps the tolerance was exceeded.
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am
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Post by am on Aug 19, 2015 10:46:50 GMT
SS could work that way, but if that was the case, why did SS take the decision to unroll some of the purchases on yesterday's auctions, as reported on some of the other threads? Good point. I had not seen the other threads where that was reported. It could still fit with my suggestion that there are soft targets with a tolerance threshold. Perhaps the tolerance was exceeded. Subsequent to my comment I saw a screen capture on another thread showing a total oversubscription of in excess of £200,000. With that amount of oversubscription it's conceivable that the oversubscription on an individual loan exceeded SS's retained holding in that loan.
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Post by naturalselection on Aug 19, 2015 11:00:43 GMT
Assuming an over subscription of 200K and people being nice and promptly sending BACS transfer assuming they have their piece of the pie, only to find out their portion was over the limits... If this scenario is feasible this needs looking at ASAP.
I really don't understand any acceptance of this over-subscription issue; maybe I'm wrong, but having worked on financial implementations I really can't fathom any reason why it's allowed. Hopefully Saving Stream will provide an official rebuttal to my concerns?
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jonno
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nil satis nisi optimum
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Post by jonno on Aug 19, 2015 11:04:02 GMT
Assuming an over subscription of 200K and people being nice and promptly sending BACS transfer assuming they have their piece of the pie, only to find out their portion was over the limits... If this scenario is feasible this needs looking at ASAP. I really don't understand any acceptance of this over-subscription issue; maybe I'm wrong, but having worked on financial implementations I really can't fathom any reason why it's allowed. Hopefully Saving Stream will provide an official rebuttal to my concerns? Don't bank on it. They are very selective with their interventions here.
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duck
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Post by duck on Aug 20, 2015 3:45:20 GMT
So, it it was designed properly there would be many cases, during a scrum, when an investor would make an investment, tick the confirmation box, then get an error along the lines of "Sorry, someone else beat you to it". I have never seen such a message. has anyone else? Yes I have. Something on the lines "Sorry but the loan is now fully sold" on a new 'page'. This popped up twice on Tuesday as I was hovering up a few bits of old loans after the scrum. Appeared after I had committed to buy.
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sam i am
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Post by sam i am on Aug 20, 2015 6:32:29 GMT
Subsequent to my comment I saw a screen capture on another thread showing a total oversubscription of in excess of £200,000. With that amount of oversubscription it's conceivable that the oversubscription on an individual loan exceeded SS's retained holding in that loan. I also saw this over-subscription. It came out of nowhere when there was little happening on the SM. it didn't fit the pattern of normal over-subscriptions because it would have required maybe a hundred investors all trying to buy a small chunk all at the same time. Normally large over-subscriptions only occur when there are large amounts to buy and they are over-subscribed by two or three investors or maybe a few more in a period of high activity. I suspect on this occasion there was something odd going on in the back end. I think it was Ramblin Rose who said she had seen this type of glitch before in the run up to a new release.
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