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Post by chris on Apr 7, 2014 10:23:18 GMT
Sounds like a display issue rather than AI issue. Have forwarded to my front end guy to investigate and fix.
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Post by westcountryfunder on Apr 7, 2014 14:01:50 GMT
Unless I’m missing something, which is quite possible, the main downside to AI that I can see at present is having money in my account that is not earning anything whilst waiting for units to be offered on the aftermarket.
This is no different to having money locked up in a loan awaiting drawdown which as many people have rightly observed, is dead money reducing the rate of return.
We'll have to wait until we see how often AI actually does anything for us before we can guess how much free cash is appropriate. Is it daily? Or once in a blue moon? I've activated AI for most of the existing loans that don't still have underwriter involvement, and so far AI hasn't bought anything for me at all. Might AC be willing to let us know how the average daily/weekly/monthly amount of AM transactions compares to the capital outstanding? Maybe what we need is an Auto GoCardless function! I don't think there has been a response to the final sentence of the above post. I am very reluctant try autobid and have funds hanging around doing nothing for an indeterminate time. An auto GoCardless function would be ideal. Excellent suggestion!
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Post by chris on Apr 7, 2014 17:30:40 GMT
An auto-billing feature like that isn't currently on the cards and it would need to be very carefully managed to prevent the system taking more money than expected. How would you want to define a limit? Monthly maximum, max set per loan with no global cap, combination of both? There'd be a real danger of making it overly complicated, but then again it would be very useful so perhaps available as an advanced setting that's a little bit buried for regular users.
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Post by chris on Apr 7, 2014 17:34:06 GMT
I should add that unless GoCardless change their currently planned rates rise they actually price themselves out of the P2P market so we may have to drop them in the near future and replace them with a debit card system. That would make it more difficult to take repeat payments making it unlikely in the near future.
I do really like GoCardless's solution though so if they do price themselves out of the market then we would investigate our own direct integration into the direct debit system.
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mikes1531
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Post by mikes1531 on Apr 8, 2014 1:26:16 GMT
An auto-billing feature like that isn't currently on the cards and it would need to be very carefully managed to prevent the system taking more money than expected. How would you want to define a limit? Monthly maximum, max set per loan with no global cap, combination of both? There'd be a real danger of making it overly complicated, but then again it would be very useful so perhaps available as an advanced setting that's a little bit buried for regular users. I see no need to have a limit set per loan, since users control that directly with their AI instructions. I'd think the simplest approach would be to allow the user to set their own 'credit limit'. Time would have nothing to do with it. They just give permission for AC to put through £XXX of DDs or GoCardless transactions as the need for funds presents itself. Each transaction processed would reduce the remaining credit available. Once that amount of 'credit' has been used, no more funds could be taken until the user decides to increase their 'credit limit'. That way the user controls the maximum that could be taken from their bank account, and there should be no nasty surprises. At least one other P2P platform has come in for a lot of criticism because their lenders have to keep a certain amount of money in their account that is unlikely ever to be lent. This 'dead' money dilutes returns, and AI has created a similar issue at AC. At the moment, 2-3% of the funds in my AC account are earning nothing just so that if AI were to find something for me to buy I'd be able to take advantage of that. After a week of AI, however, it has done nothing for me except place bids in active auctions and buy loan parts from underwriters -- things I could do for myself very easily. My hoped-for occasional purchases of loan parts in non-underwritten active loans just have not happened -- possibly because I already have some parts in most of those already. So I probably could get away with keeping very little idle cash in my account, especially as AM parts are going to end up spread even more thinly in the future as more and more lenders set up AIMs. A 'credit limit' as described above, would solve the idle funds issue, and might also go some way towards solving the problem of how to deal with potential AI activity and shadow bidding settlement requirements when a lender is on holiday.
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mikes1531
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Post by mikes1531 on Apr 8, 2014 2:23:27 GMT
Does anyone know purpose of the lower part of the Auto-Invest section of My Account? (It's the part labelled "Your Auto-Invest Activity".) I have 279 pages' worth of this table! Half of the entries are rather useless, reporting "Checking Mandate NNN". The other half of the entries mostly say either "Would increase loan units but no loan units available" -- these are the AIMs where my target is greater than my existing holding -- or "No action to take on mandate NNN" -- these are the AIMs where my target matches my existing holding. There also are a few entries which say "Loan cannot be operated on by auto-invest: auction closed" -- I find that rather misleading, as that happens for loans where the auction is closed but the loan hasn't drawn down yet and, in most cases, underwriter loan parts will become available as soon as the loan is drawn down, and I've instructed AI to purchase some of those when they hit the AM. In short, I find no useful info in the 279 pages of data, so I'm wondering if I'm missing something.  |
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Post by westcountryfunder on Apr 8, 2014 14:19:08 GMT
An auto-billing feature like that isn't currently on the cards and it would need to be very carefully managed to prevent the system taking more money than expected. How would you want to define a limit? Monthly maximum, max set per loan with no global cap, combination of both? There'd be a real danger of making it overly complicated, but then again it would be very useful so perhaps available as an advanced setting that's a little bit buried for regular users. I see no need to have a limit set per loan, since users control that directly with their AI instructions. I'd think the simplest approach would be to allow the user to set their own 'credit limit'. Time would have nothing to do with it. They just give permission for AC to put through £XXX of DDs or GoCardless transactions as the need for funds presents itself. Each transaction processed would reduce the remaining credit available. Once that amount of 'credit' has been used, no more funds could be taken until the user decides to increase their 'credit limit'. That way the user controls the maximum that could be taken from their bank account, and there should be no nasty surprises. A 'credit limit' as described above, would solve the idle funds issue, and might also go some way towards solving the problem of how to deal with potential AI activity and shadow bidding settlement requirements when a lender is on holiday. I see no reason why this should be complicated in concept. When I bid or purchase a loan part manually all I do is top up the cash balance in my account to the required sum. So if I am bidding or purchasing for £500, say, and there is £30 in cash, then I do GoCardless for £470. That is precisely what I would like to be done with autobidding, ideally. I can see that there is an issue in principle with GoCardless in that they hold mandates from us investors individually, not from AC. Alternatively, why cannot we just set up direct debits mandates with AC for them to debit our bank accounts? I have investment accounts with financial advisers who use this method to claim their periodic charges. Seems to work OK. A third suggestion is that successful autobids could be advised to lenders by email, who would then be allowed one working day to fund their AC account, after which their autobid would fail (which is presumably what happens if a GoCardless DD "bounces").
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mikes1531
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Post by mikes1531 on Apr 8, 2014 16:05:36 GMT
Alternatively, why cannot we just set up direct debits mandates with AC for them to debit our bank accounts? I have investment accounts with financial advisers who use this method to claim their periodic charges. Seems to work OK. A third suggestion is that successful autobids could be advised to lenders by email, who would then be allowed one working day to fund their AC account, after which their autobid would fail (which is presumably what happens if a GoCardless DD "bounces"). Emails requiring action are fine as long as lenders are well connected. The real problem occurs when they're off on holiday. I'm going to be in Albania later this year and, since that's outside the EU, EE/Orange want £8/MB (!!) for data service. Needless to say, I'll have mobile data switched off while I'm there! AC handling DD's in-house may be the best answer, since they'd be completely in control, though they might not want the responsibilities that come with making those transactions. Presumably that's why they engaged GoCardless in the first place. PS. Does anyone know what actually happens if a GoCardless DD 'bounces'?
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mikeb
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Post by mikeb on Apr 8, 2014 18:47:24 GMT
Does anyone know purpose of the lower part of the Auto-Invest section of My Account? (It's the part labelled "Your Auto-Invest Activity".) I have 279 pages' worth of this table! Half of the entries are rather useless, reporting "Checking Mandate NNN". The other half of the entries mostly say either "Would increase loan units but no loan units available" -- these are the AIMs where my target is greater than my existing holding -- or "No action to take on mandate NNN" -- these are the AIMs where my target matches my existing holding. There also are a few entries which say "Loan cannot be operated on by auto-invest: auction closed" -- I find that rather misleading, as that happens for loans where the auction is closed but the loan hasn't drawn down yet and, in most cases, underwriter loan parts will become available as soon as the loan is drawn down, and I've instructed AI to purchase some of those when they hit the AM. In short, I find no useful info in the 279 pages of data, so I'm wondering if I'm missing something. Yes, it needs a bit of a filter down, doesn't it  I suspect this is chris 's revenge for some of us asking for a log of what the AI has done. Obviously, we should have been more specific, a log of what it has done, not all the stuff it tried-and-failed to do. Otherwise we are going to be buried in logging information!
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j
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Post by j on Apr 8, 2014 18:52:02 GMT
Alternatively, why cannot we just set up direct debits mandates with AC for them to debit our bank accounts? I have investment accounts with financial advisers who use this method to claim their periodic charges. Seems to work OK. A third suggestion is that successful autobids could be advised to lenders by email, who would then be allowed one working day to fund their AC account, after which their autobid would fail (which is presumably what happens if a GoCardless DD "bounces"). Emails requiring action are fine as long as lenders are well connected. The real problem occurs when they're off on holiday. I'm going to be in Albania later this year and, since that's outside the EU, EE/Orange want £8/MB (!!) for data service. Needless to say, I'll have mobile data switched off while I'm there! AC handling DD's in-house may be the best answer, since they'd be completely in control, though they might not want the responsibilities that come with making those transactions. Presumably that's why they engaged GoCardless in the first place. PS. Does anyone know what actually happens if a GoCardless DD 'bounces'? Internet cafe? I assume they would have some depending which area you're traveling to. I bet you it would be cheaper & better than the rubbish service I get off my ISP
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Post by Ton ⓉⓞⓃ on Apr 8, 2014 19:20:35 GMT
Does anyone know purpose of the lower part of the Auto-Invest section of My Account? (It's the part labelled "Your Auto-Invest Activity".) I have 279 pages' worth of this table! Half of the entries are rather useless, reporting "Checking Mandate NNN". The other half of the entries mostly say either "Would increase loan units but no loan units available" -- these are the AIMs where my target is greater than my existing holding -- or "No action to take on mandate NNN" -- these are the AIMs where my target matches my existing holding. There also are a few entries which say "Loan cannot be operated on by auto-invest: auction closed" -- I find that rather misleading, as that happens for loans where the auction is closed but the loan hasn't drawn down yet and, in most cases, underwriter loan parts will become available as soon as the loan is drawn down, and I've instructed AI to purchase some of those when they hit the AM. In short, I find no useful info in the 279 pages of data, so I'm wondering if I'm missing something. Yes, it needs a bit of a filter down, doesn't it I suspect this is chris 's revenge for some of us asking for a log of what the AI has done. Obviously, we should have been more specific, a log of what it has done, not all the stuff it tried-and-failed to do. Otherwise we are going to be buried in logging information! Information is power, I'm happy that we can see so much, tho' there is a lot of it. In a couple of months I might be bored with, but not while I still trying to understand it.
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mikes1531
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Post by mikes1531 on Apr 8, 2014 19:34:37 GMT
Emails requiring action are fine as long as lenders are well connected. The real problem occurs when they're off on holiday. I'm going to be in Albania later this year and, since that's outside the EU, EE/Orange want £8/MB (!!) for data service. Needless to say, I'll have mobile data switched off while I'm there! Internet cafe? I assume they would have some depending which area you're traveling to. I bet you it would be cheaper & better than the rubbish service I get off my ISP I expect there will be some internet cafes around, but I'm going to be cycling out in the countryside away from the big cities, so I don't know what I'll find. No doubt some of the hotels will offer inexpensive wi-fi, so I ought to be able to look at my email occasionally, though I'd really rather be interacting with the others in my group than off in a corner looking at the internet. But when it comes to AC... Do I really want to be using public wi-fi systems to log into my AC account? Or my bank account? Not likely!
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Post by Ton ⓉⓞⓃ on Apr 9, 2014 19:52:13 GMT
Does anyone know purpose of the lower part of the Auto-Invest section of My Account? (It's the part labelled "Your Auto-Invest Activity".) I have 279 pages' worth of this table! Half of the entries are rather useless, reporting "Checking Mandate NNN". The other half of the entries mostly say either "Would increase loan units but no loan units available" -- these are the AIMs where my target is greater than my existing holding -- or "No action to take on mandate NNN" -- these are the AIMs where my target matches my existing holding. There also are a few entries which say "Loan cannot be operated on by auto-invest: auction closed" -- I find that rather misleading, as that happens for loans where the auction is closed but the loan hasn't drawn down yet and, in most cases, underwriter loan parts will become available as soon as the loan is drawn down, and I've instructed AI to purchase some of those when they hit the AM. In short, I find no useful info in the 279 pages of data, so I'm wondering if I'm missing something. I see mikes1531 that you have 279 odd pages I tend to have 540 or 541. It seems to take 25minutes to go through all my AI mandates, I've put in requests for most old loans does anyone have a longer set of pages or AI take a different time to check all your mandates?
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ramblin rose
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Post by ramblin rose on Apr 10, 2014 18:28:32 GMT
Internet cafe? I assume they would have some depending which area you're traveling to. I bet you it would be cheaper & better than the rubbish service I get off my ISP I expect there will be some internet cafes around, but I'm going to be cycling out in the countryside away from the big cities, so I don't know what I'll find. No doubt some of the hotels will offer inexpensive wi-fi, so I ought to be able to look at my email occasionally, though I'd really rather be interacting with the others in my group than off in a corner looking at the internet. But when it comes to AC... Do I really want to be using public wi-fi systems to log into my AC account? Or my bank account? Not likely! You'd be amazed how much wifi is around the world these days. I was looked at with some derision in the Amazon jungle last year when I said to a local guide that I imagined I'd be unlikely to get any wifi connection for the next few days. "Of course we have wifi" he said with some haughtiness. And that told me. And it's generally only the upmarket places that expect you to pay for it too - most cafe's, hotels etc are happy to provide it if you're paying for some sort of service, like a few drinks, a meal or a room. With you on the financial access though - no way Hosé - a bit of blogging and the like only.
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Post by chris on Apr 28, 2014 20:41:29 GMT
Does anyone know purpose of the lower part of the Auto-Invest section of My Account? (It's the part labelled "Your Auto-Invest Activity".) I have 279 pages' worth of this table! Half of the entries are rather useless, reporting "Checking Mandate NNN". The other half of the entries mostly say either "Would increase loan units but no loan units available" -- these are the AIMs where my target is greater than my existing holding -- or "No action to take on mandate NNN" -- these are the AIMs where my target matches my existing holding. There also are a few entries which say "Loan cannot be operated on by auto-invest: auction closed" -- I find that rather misleading, as that happens for loans where the auction is closed but the loan hasn't drawn down yet and, in most cases, underwriter loan parts will become available as soon as the loan is drawn down, and I've instructed AI to purchase some of those when they hit the AM. In short, I find no useful info in the 279 pages of data, so I'm wondering if I'm missing something. I see mikes1531 that you have 279 odd pages I tend to have 540 or 541. It seems to take 25minutes to go through all my AI mandates, I've put in requests for most old loans does anyone have a longer set of pages or AI take a different time to check all your mandates? AI runs using events so that if something occurs that should trigger a check then it checks it as close to real time as resources allow. The periodic checks are more precautionary in case something happens that isn't covered by an event or there is a bug, so it checks everyone's instructions roughly every 25 - 30 minutes, but with a little bit of a random factor to prevent bunching or them always being checked in the same order in case this gives one group of people an unfair advantage.
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