sl75
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Post by sl75 on Oct 8, 2015 14:36:52 GMT
I also feel it's simpler to just enable an option (two clicks) and then use the site as you would have anyway with the system doing the rest in the background if you have any idle funds. Transferring funds into the QAA and then allocating them out to other accounts seems like an extra step and a whole load of management on top of the existing solution. Or am I misunderstanding you? To avoid those extra steps and management, simply break the artificial distinction between "funds IN the QAA", and "funds in the cash account that have been swept into the QAA". I can see no practical difference apart from some additional unnecessary steps. The existing solution has a whole load of extra steps and management for a user who simply wishes to move idle funds from one account to another. At present, as I understand it, if the QAA were sweeping funds instantly as originally intended, 8 user-visible statement entries would be generated in order to move funds from (say) the MLIA to the GBBA. [and two explicit user actions are required] 1. instant withdrawn by MLIA from QAA[MLIA] 2. funds sent by MLIA to cash account 3. funds received by cash account from MLIA 4. investment into QAA[cash] by cash account 5. instant withdrawal by cash account from QAA[cash] 6. funds sent by cash account to GBBA 7. funds received by GBBA from cash account 8. investment into QAA[GBBA] by GBBA (or maybe investment directly into some loans without bothering the QAA again if you're lucky!) In addition, I would assume that there are 4 other non-visible transactions for the QAA receiving and sending the relevant funds along the lines of the following, making a total of 12. a. amount from QAA[MLIA] sent to MLIA b. amount received by QAA[cash] from cash account c. amount from QAA[cash] sent to cash account d. amount received by QAA[GBBA] from GBBA. Under what seems to me a more sane system, the funds are simply allocated from one account to another resulting in 2 statement entries: 1. balance sent by QAA[MLIA] to QAA[GBBA] 2. balance received by QAA[GBBA] from QAA[MLIA] This would of course require making the statements for QAA[MLIA], QAA[GBBA] user-visible, but that would solve another problem with auditing too! The (currently separate, one user-visible and one not) statements for QAA and QAA[cash] could also be unified.
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Post by chris on Oct 8, 2015 15:07:33 GMT
I also feel it's simpler to just enable an option (two clicks) and then use the site as you would have anyway with the system doing the rest in the background if you have any idle funds. Transferring funds into the QAA and then allocating them out to other accounts seems like an extra step and a whole load of management on top of the existing solution. Or am I misunderstanding you? To avoid those extra steps and management, simply break the artificial distinction between "funds IN the QAA", and "funds in the cash account that have been swept into the QAA". I can see no practical difference apart from some additional unnecessary steps. The existing solution has a whole load of extra steps and management for a user who simply wishes to move idle funds from one account to another. At present, as I understand it, if the QAA were sweeping funds instantly as originally intended, 8 user-visible statement entries would be generated in order to move funds from (say) the MLIA to the GBBA. [and two explicit user actions are required] 1. instant withdrawn by MLIA from QAA[MLIA] 2. funds sent by MLIA to cash account 3. funds received by cash account from MLIA 4. investment into QAA[cash] by cash account 5. instant withdrawal by cash account from QAA[cash] 6. funds sent by cash account to GBBA 7. funds received by GBBA from cash account 8. investment into QAA[GBBA] by GBBA (or maybe investment directly into some loans without bothering the QAA again if you're lucky!) In addition, I would assume that there are 4 other non-visible transactions for the QAA receiving and sending the relevant funds along the lines of the following, making a total of 12. a. amount from QAA[MLIA] sent to MLIA b. amount received by QAA[cash] from cash account c. amount from QAA[cash] sent to cash account d. amount received by QAA[GBBA] from GBBA. Under what seems to me a more sane system, the funds are simply allocated from one account to another resulting in 2 statement entries: 1. balance sent by QAA[MLIA] to QAA[GBBA] 2. balance received by QAA[GBBA] from QAA[MLIA] This would of course require making the statements for QAA[MLIA], QAA[GBBA] user-visible, but that would solve another problem with auditing too! The (currently separate, one user-visible and one not) statements for QAA and QAA[cash] could also be unified. Assuming you have enabled the "invest idle funds" option then the following occurs. When you deposit funds in the MLIA via direct bank transfer: 1. Funds are credited to the MLIA. 2. Withdrawal from the MLIA to the QAA account (only if there is capacity to do so otherwise there is no transaction). When you then make an MLIA investment that requires those funds: 1. Withdrawal from QAA account to MLIA. 2. Withdrawal from MLIA to purchase loan unit. In both instances there is a single extra entry on the statement over what would happen if the QAA did not exist or the sweep function were disabled.
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Post by yorkshireman on Oct 8, 2015 22:30:44 GMT
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz  |
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oldgrumpy
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Post by oldgrumpy on Oct 8, 2015 22:43:33 GMT
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz 
Is Sir ready for his first breakfast? (or is he still supping his 4th Timothy Taylor's?)
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shimself
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Post by shimself on Oct 9, 2015 8:32:25 GMT
.. In both instances there is a single extra entry on the statement over what would happen if the QAA did not exist or the sweep function were disabled. Oh heavens - with 20 transactions a day for 0.000001 already I really don't think I could stand another
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Post by chris on Oct 9, 2015 8:33:19 GMT
.. In both instances there is a single extra entry on the statement over what would happen if the QAA did not exist or the sweep function were disabled. Oh heavens - with 20 transactions a day for 0.000001 already I really don't think I could stand another Then don't use the facility.
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shimself
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Post by shimself on Oct 9, 2015 8:40:03 GMT
Oh heavens - with 20 transactions a day for 0.000001 already I really don't think I could stand another Then don't use the facility. That was a dig, and meant to be faintly humourous. What was serious was that, with many others, I transferred money directly into the QAA, when we should have transferred it into the MLIA for sweeping up - I don't understand why anyone of your existing investors would want NOT to use it through the MLIA. I do wonder about your user testing sometimes.
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Post by chris on Oct 9, 2015 8:59:41 GMT
Then don't use the facility. That was a dig, and meant to be faintly humourous. What was serious was that, with many others, I transferred money directly into the QAA, when we should have transferred it into the MLIA for sweeping up - I don't understand why anyone of your existing investors would want NOT to use it through the MLIA. I do wonder about your user testing sometimes. There are many investors that want to use it directly. It's also a legal requirement for it to be an opt in service so I can't just enable it for everyone. In this instance I don't think the issue is with the implementation it's in the help text, or lack of, that surrounds it. I'm working with the marketing / content team on improving that as I can't do everything myself.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 9, 2015 9:05:07 GMT
I think the great thing about this forum it lets you test out ideas and learn how to use the portal sites. In many ways this site is far superior to all the Portal Q&As especially when things are changing fast in most of the portals.
My own advice is that the portals scrub their own forums and just use this one. It might mean that we get "average down" faster, but the input from all the portals that I read is excellent, most of the time both "sides" don't get too petulant, and knowledge growth is impressive. I for one don't make any P2P investment without consulting here, which is not the case on the portals' forums which are tainted by "Marketing" and the "Finanace" depts.
I suspect that in the same way that P2P is disrupting a tradition, this site is disrupting the traditional local forum and is proving game changing.
One thing that could be stopped for me now is the various "promotional" chest thumping weekly and monthly newsletters which suffer from being laughable and so 1980s. I have no idea who would take them seriously and they certainly doesn't fit into my idea of modern social networking communications, still it is nice to go back in time once in a while.
I continue to worry about the QAA as it is based on "the loans the underwriters couldn't get rid of" sort of deal. Yes that will reduce but only to the detriment of those who read the risks correctly and we are in danger of moving P2P into sub-prime (all cats are black in a dark cellar) loans that got us into the mess in the first place.
Have a great weekend
Bobo
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Post by chris on Oct 9, 2015 9:33:04 GMT
I continue to worry about the QAA as it is based on "the loans the underwriters couldn't get rid of" sort of deal. Don't think we've ever said that have we? It's certainly not what the QAA is based on. Edit: By definition it's the opposite of what the QAA wants to hold as we couldn't liquidate those loan units quickly.
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sqh
Member of DD Central
Before P2P, savers put a guinea in a piggy bank, now they smash the banks to become guinea pigs.
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Post by sqh on Oct 9, 2015 9:48:40 GMT
I think that each deposit in the QAA should be given a time to live (say 28 days). When it expires it gets sent to the back of the queue. Otherwise, many direct deposits will never be removed.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 9, 2015 10:11:28 GMT
I continue to worry about the QAA as it is based on "the loans the underwriters couldn't get rid of" sort of deal. Don't think we've ever said that have we? It's certainly not what the QAA is based on. Edit: By definition it's the opposite of what the QAA wants to hold as we couldn't liquidate those loan units quickly. Chris, you are right, but.... look back at what you did write when I first raised this issue... and judge people "not by what they say they will do, but by what they do", is a pretty good rule in life. In terms of liquidating, since only 1/3 is invested then liquidity of 2/3 is ready and willing to help.... Yes I agree you may not want to do this, but with the lack of demand it kinda works out the way. Much as the IT dept is trying to do summit' the whole of AC is achieving something different. 
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sl75
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Post by sl75 on Oct 9, 2015 11:16:58 GMT
Assuming you have enabled the "invest idle funds" option then the following occurs. When you deposit funds in the MLIA via direct bank transfer: 1. Funds are credited to the MLIA. 2. Withdrawal from the MLIA to the QAA account (only if there is capacity to do so otherwise there is no transaction). When you then make an MLIA investment that requires those funds: 1. Withdrawal from QAA account to MLIA. 2. Withdrawal from MLIA to purchase loan unit. In both instances there is a single extra entry on the statement over what would happen if the QAA did not exist or the sweep function were disabled. Great, and I don't think anyone's suggesting to do anything different in those instances. However, in the instance where an investor wants to move idle funds from one AC account to another AC account, including the specific case where users have funds stranded in the QAA[direct] account which they had intended to be in QAA[MLIA] or QAA[GBBA] or similar, your systems make it unnecessarily complicated. Add a facility to move uninvested cash, or QAA-swept cash directly from one investment account to another, and everyone will be happy! [Edit: ... or rather, once the deal pipeline has got unbunged so that QAA actually stands a chance of working as designed!] The systems are also unnecessarily complicated due to the explicit distinction between the QAA[direct] and QAA[cash] accounts. The only difference between these is that the user must explicitly make an extra transaction to retrieve funds from QAA[direct] into cash before transferring it elsewhere, but the system will automatically generate one to retrieve funds from QAA[cash]. The systems also seem to me deficient for auditing purposes, as there is absolutely nowhere on the system where I can generate any kind of statement for what the QAA has been doing with my swept funds. Perhaps direct investors in the QAA don't get any kind of meaningful statement either?
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Post by chris on Oct 9, 2015 11:56:19 GMT
I don't like this bit. I don't think there should be different mechanisms for doing that whether you have the QAA sweep switched on or off. I prefer it being transparent, and that seems to make more sense for most users.
I can accept that to a degree but there are users that want to invest directly in the QAA and it seems counter intuitive to expect them to leave cash lying around in another account so that it's swept automatically. We're aware of the issues facing the QAA in terms of deal flow and the longer term effect direct investments will have on the fund, but a mix of the two styles of investments is beneficial for the operation of the account and will remain. But there will be tweaks down the road to balance the needs of both types of investor.
This is by design and is the same for all investors in the QAA regardless of method. Won't be changing any time soon.
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mikes1531
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Post by mikes1531 on Oct 9, 2015 12:22:40 GMT
In about 2 - 6 months when QAA isn't overstuffed and is free to operate correctly and as intended... Shall we take note of this forecast and see if it is any more accurate than AC's deal flow forecasts? 
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