wapping35
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Post by wapping35 on Feb 10, 2016 19:56:51 GMT
Just as a heads up I just did my first ZOPA user tester survey on their proposed new products in March & April. (the dates mentioned on the survey) Obviously its all tentative, but they are looking at 2 new products (SG will remain evidently). So 3 in total. 1) Is an near instant access "account". I assume like RS's 30 day one, it might be a shorter period. 2) Is a non-SG investment. So the lender takes any losses (as in pre SG) but gets higher rates. There was no in-depth details on the products but it looks like a non-SG product is being considered. I mentioned on the survey that I would want more Lender management info on the micro - loans if I was going to take this new non-SG option. i..e The new loan book is okay for SG loans and bearable (I guess) for my dwindling old non-SG loan book, but without better management info I would be v reluctant to go into a non-SG option. Interestingly most of the survey was asking about my opinions on various name options for the new investment types...Which to me didn't seem v important versus the product content but hey ho.  |
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momac
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Post by momac on Feb 10, 2016 22:03:58 GMT
Gosh, wouldn't it be fun if the non-SG investment allowed one to select the rate at which to lend?
Which, of course, might get us back to where it all started if the Loan Book could keep up.
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wapping35
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Post by wapping35 on Feb 11, 2016 11:23:26 GMT
Gosh, wouldn't it be fun if the non-SG investment allowed one to select the rate at which to lend? Which, of course, might get us back to where it all started if the Loan Book could keep up. That would be v nice along with selecting the risk profile. No details of rates, risk levels , nor lending chunk size were given. But it sounds an interesting possibility.
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Post by geoffp on Feb 11, 2016 11:56:47 GMT
Yes - I saw that too. They are concerned what it should be called. They asked respondents (us) if we might be interested in investing in such a product but I said it would be hard to say unless we knew what we were investing in (apart from the name).
Of course, utterly impossible without a proper view of the loan book. The present iteration is unusable.
Cheers!
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Post by easteregg on Feb 11, 2016 12:45:02 GMT
I believe that institutional lenders on Zopa receive the actual lending rate (less fees) and without the protection of the safeguard fund, which is pretty much what retail lenders received before the introduction of safeguard. I suspect they may be considering opening this up to retail lenders.
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oldgrumpy
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Post by oldgrumpy on Feb 11, 2016 12:57:17 GMT
So it has taken Zopa about two years to realise why a lot of lenders have been on the steady way out. They had a forum telling them!!
Bit like FC, who have imposed all sorts of changes (like fixed lower rates), have been told the lenders don't like it, but after many many months are now emailing people to ask "why are you withdrawing your money?"!!
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momac
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Post by momac on Feb 11, 2016 14:12:33 GMT
I believe that institutional lenders on Zopa receive the actual lending rate (less fees) and without the protection of the safeguard fund, which is pretty much what retail lenders received before the introduction of safeguard. I suspect they may be considering opening this up to retail lenders. Presumably the institutional lenders have not been forced to contend with the unusable loan book foisted on us and must be using something akin to the old style MLB. Now, if Zopa gave those retail lenders with pre-SG loans the use of the institution lenders loan book, they could win back quite a few friends.
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Post by GSV3MIaC on Feb 11, 2016 16:57:47 GMT
Not this one .. lost trust is hard to regain, and 'once bitten' (by random, imposed, unannounced-in-advance, unhelpful, changes) 'twice shy'.
The ZOPA business has developed and evolved in exactly all the directions I didn't enjoy (and FC is going rapidly the same way), and it'd take a sea change to persuade me they leopard now has stripes.
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spiral
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Post by spiral on Feb 11, 2016 19:35:10 GMT
Not this one .. lost trust is hard to regain, and 'once bitten' (by random, imposed, unannounced-in-advance, unhelpful, changes) 'twice shy'. The ZOPA business has developed and evolved in exactly all the directions I didn't enjoy (and FC is going rapidly the same way), and it'd take a sea change to persuade me they leopard now has stripes. I for one would be happy enough to return should the return to risk ratio satisfy. I have issues with most of the platforms I invest with but they all have their price. Zopa has lost me due to lack of control over my own money, should that return, then so might I.
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Post by GSV3MIaC on Feb 11, 2016 19:58:23 GMT
The issue I have is that there is an investment (in time and money) to engage with a platform, and if they have a track record of screwing things up at regular intervals then I consider the risk they will do it again before I recoup that investment is too high to bother. Yep, if there was some huge apparent advantage I would recalculate, but they'd need to offer me several percent over the current RS/SS/FC offerings to encourage me to overlook their past transgressions .. and I find that rather unlikely. YMMV. Zapping their forum just cost them some more brownie points (50% rebate for making it read-only available for a couple of weeks).
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Post by deddington on Feb 11, 2016 20:54:07 GMT
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momac
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Post by momac on Feb 12, 2016 22:06:54 GMT
That about encapsulates it.
I received direct emails today from two other P2P platforms giving me largely the same blurb.
As a long time Zopa investor I have learned about Zopa's offer through the recommendation of someone on an independent forum (to which I have only recently subscribed) providing a link to a blog.
Apologies to Deddington - you're not just any old someone!
The marketing persons at Zopa really need to think things through.
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mikes1531
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Post by mikes1531 on Feb 14, 2016 20:28:40 GMT
Zapping their forum just cost them some more brownie points (50% rebate for making it read-only available for a couple of weeks). : Are you saying that Zopa have made the forum read-only available for a limited time, or just that you'd be pleased if they did? I'd be most grateful if I could use it for reference, as I went back to look something up the other day -- just after receiving the closure announcement -- and found that it already had been shut down.
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Post by GSV3MIaC on Feb 15, 2016 7:54:07 GMT
They did ... Read the forum thread.
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Post by Ton ⓉⓞⓃ on Feb 16, 2016 13:23:22 GMT
There is now a link to the old Talk.Zopa forum in the Useful Resources post pinned at the top of the Zopa board. |
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