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Post by mrclondon on Aug 26, 2014 18:57:21 GMT
If anyone has sold parts of this loan on the aftermarket over the last month, it would be wise to check your account statement to ensure you have received a deferred interest payment today for each loan part you have sold.
I sold 5 units split between 18th & 19th August, and did not receive the accrued deferred interest for any of them today alongside the interest payment for the parts in this loan I continue to hold.
I alerted AC to this latest account error late morning today, but so far have just had a brief acknowledgement email. My patience with the ongoing catalogue of account errors at AC is wearing very thin, and I have stopped recommending AC to potential lenders for the time being.
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Post by chris on Aug 26, 2014 21:16:23 GMT
If anyone has sold parts of this loan on the aftermarket over the last month, it would be wise to check your account statement to ensure you have received a deferred interest payment today for each loan part you have sold. I sold 5 units split between 18th & 19th August, and did not receive the accrued deferred interest for any of them today alongside the interest payment for the parts in this loan I continue to hold. I alerted AC to this latest account error late morning today, but so far have just had a brief acknowledgement email. My patience with the ongoing catalogue of account errors at AC is wearing very thin, and I have stopped recommending AC to potential lenders for the time being. This one is a very specific error where the loan repayments were recalculated prior to the repayment going through due to a change in fees to the borrower which had a side effect of resetting the deferred repayments. This was tracked down late this evening so a correction, and communication to that effect, will be going out to you and other affected lenders tomorrow. I'm sorry people have been affected by this. We are reviewing things internally to tighten our procedures - when there have been one off events too much has been done manually which has allowed human error to creep in. More will be automated in the coming weeks to make sure that we stamp it out.
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mikes1531
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Post by mikes1531 on Aug 27, 2014 16:13:10 GMT
If anyone has sold parts of this loan on the aftermarket over the last month, it would be wise to check your account statement to ensure you have received a deferred interest payment today for each loan part you have sold. I sold 5 units split between 18th & 19th August, and did not receive the accrued deferred interest for any of them today alongside the interest payment for the parts in this loan I continue to hold. I alerted AC to this latest account error late morning today, but so far have just had a brief acknowledgement email. My patience with the ongoing catalogue of account errors at AC is wearing very thin, and I have stopped recommending AC to potential lenders for the time being. This one is a very specific error where the loan repayments were recalculated prior to the repayment going through due to a change in fees to the borrower which had a side effect of resetting the deferred repayments. This was tracked down late this evening so a correction, and communication to that effect, will be going out to you and other affected lenders tomorrow. I'm sorry people have been affected by this. We are reviewing things internally to tighten our procedures - when there have been one off events too much has been done manually which has allowed human error to creep in. More will be automated in the coming weeks to make sure that we stamp it out. The critical question, chris, is... How did AC become aware of the problem? Was it via internal controls? Or was it because a lender like mrclondon did his own calculations and raised the issue with AC?
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Post by chris on Aug 27, 2014 16:15:14 GMT
Underwriters were affected and alerted us, although mrclondon was very quick off the mark and was amongst the first. |
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mikes1531
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Post by mikes1531 on Aug 27, 2014 16:22:41 GMT
Underwriters were affected and alerted us, although mrclondon was very quick off the mark and was amongst the first. Thanks for the quick response, chris. Do you think AC would have spotted the problem themselves eventually? Or does this sort of error catching require checking by lenders?
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ramblin rose
Member of DD Central
“Some people grumble that roses have thorns; I am grateful that thorns have roses.” — Alphonse Karr
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Post by ramblin rose on Aug 27, 2014 16:32:48 GMT
Underwriters were affected and alerted us, although mrclondon was very quick off the mark and was amongst the first. Thanks for the quick response, chris. Do you think AC would have spotted the problem themselves eventually? Or does this sort of error catching require checking by lenders? Well, chris did say above: " We are reviewing things internally to tighten our procedures - when there have been one off events too much has been done manually which has allowed human error to creep in. More will be automated in the coming weeks to make sure that we stamp it out.", which kind of implies they have already realised that they should have spotted it before it had an effect and are taking steps to ensure it will be better. (I think you were away again last week mikes1531 when I upset the regulars by suggesting the AC procedures were lacking, but it would seem that one way or another improvements are about to be made which should make us all a lot happier).
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Post by chris on Aug 27, 2014 16:35:28 GMT
Underwriters were affected and alerted us, although mrclondon was very quick off the mark and was amongst the first. Thanks for the quick response, chris. Do you think AC would have spotted the problem themselves eventually? Or does this sort of error catching require checking by lenders? It would have been eventually picked up by us as we do report on interest earned to our underwriters and they are the most heavily affected group. In this instances individual underwriters and two lenders have spotted it before us enabling us to act more quickly.
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Post by chris on Aug 27, 2014 16:46:03 GMT
Thanks for the quick response, chris. Do you think AC would have spotted the problem themselves eventually? Or does this sort of error catching require checking by lenders? Well, chris did say above: " We are reviewing things internally to tighten our procedures - when there have been one off events too much has been done manually which has allowed human error to creep in. More will be automated in the coming weeks to make sure that we stamp it out.", which kind of implies they have already realised that they should have spotted it before it had an effect and are taking steps to ensure it will be better. (I think you were away again last week mikes1531 when I upset the regulars by suggesting the AC procedures were lacking, but it would seem that one way or another improvements are about to be made which should make us all a lot happier). It's more preventative than we should have spotted it first. Our loan repayment system is currently very rigid in that all repayments for all loan units are pre-calculated at drawdown so that we can display the full repayment schedule. Changes to that schedule, as happened with this one, are a very manual process and whilst certain steps are automated they're used so infrequently and are generally used in different ways each time that a bug has slipped through on this occasion. With the new site and some of the other wider changes we're making the entire repayment engine has been redesigned and rebuilt from the ground up to give us far more flexibility. Whilst the overall repayment plan is pre-calculated so it can be displayed to borrowers and against the loan, on a per loan unit basis it's recalculated dynamically as payments are made. Deferred interest is also recalculated at the point of repayment rather than using a cached accrued interest value. This gives us much greater flexibility when changes need to be made to a loan, a loan defaults, etc. It also removes an entire class of problem that have on occasion tripped us up. Our repayment engine is probably the most complex in the market at the moment with its support for all kinds of repayment plans and deferred interest, which we believe to be far fairer than other platforms, and it currently relies on a lot of brute force mechanisms and complex code in order to work. Our new solution is far more elegant whilst giving us even more flexibility.
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Post by Ton ⓉⓞⓃ on Aug 27, 2014 17:08:19 GMT
It's more preventative than we should have spotted it first. Our loan repayment system is currently very rigid in that all repayments for all loan units are pre-calculated at drawdown so that we can display the full repayment schedule. Changes to that schedule, as happened with this one, are a very manual process and whilst certain steps are automated they're used so infrequently and are generally used in different ways each time that a bug has slipped through on this occasion. With the new site and some of the other wider changes we're making the entire repayment engine has been redesigned and rebuilt from the ground up to give us far more flexibility. Whilst the overall repayment plan is pre-calculated so it can be displayed to borrowers and against the loan, on a per loan unit basis it's recalculated dynamically as payments are made. Deferred interest is also recalculated at the point of repayment rather than using a cached accrued interest value. This gives us much greater flexibility when changes need to be made to a loan, a loan defaults, etc. It also removes an entire class of problem that have on occasion tripped us up. Our repayment engine is probably the most complex in the market at the moment with its support for all kinds of repayment plans and deferred interest, which we believe to be far fairer than other platforms, and it currently relies on a lot of brute force mechanisms and complex code in order to work. Our new solution is far more elegant whilst giving us even more flexibility. It's interesting you're about the repayments on a Wind Turbine (WT). I think all WT deals have a very similar structure, but this one will serve as a good example. Simply put where does the 5% capital payment fit in at the end of the first 12months? I never seen any mention of it in the repayment schedule. My calculator's broken so I may've missed it. But will it be shown as a lump sum on the new site? For me the New Site is a bit like Aberystwyth always getting delayed by something.
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Post by chris on Aug 27, 2014 17:13:20 GMT
It's more preventative than we should have spotted it first. Our loan repayment system is currently very rigid in that all repayments for all loan units are pre-calculated at drawdown so that we can display the full repayment schedule. Changes to that schedule, as happened with this one, are a very manual process and whilst certain steps are automated they're used so infrequently and are generally used in different ways each time that a bug has slipped through on this occasion. With the new site and some of the other wider changes we're making the entire repayment engine has been redesigned and rebuilt from the ground up to give us far more flexibility. Whilst the overall repayment plan is pre-calculated so it can be displayed to borrowers and against the loan, on a per loan unit basis it's recalculated dynamically as payments are made. Deferred interest is also recalculated at the point of repayment rather than using a cached accrued interest value. This gives us much greater flexibility when changes need to be made to a loan, a loan defaults, etc. It also removes an entire class of problem that have on occasion tripped us up. Our repayment engine is probably the most complex in the market at the moment with its support for all kinds of repayment plans and deferred interest, which we believe to be far fairer than other platforms, and it currently relies on a lot of brute force mechanisms and complex code in order to work. Our new solution is far more elegant whilst giving us even more flexibility. It's interesting you're about the repayments on a Wind Turbine (WT). I think all WT deals have a very similar structure, but this one will serve as a good example. Simply put where does the 5% capital payment fit in at the end of the first 12months? I never seen any mention of it in the repayment schedule. My calculator's broken so I may've missed it. But will it be shown as a lump sum on the new site? For me the New Site is a bit like Aberystwyth always getting delayed by something. The current repayment engine doesn't support a partial capital repayment like that when it isn't part of a normal loan repayment. The new repayment engine will fully support it.
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mikes1531
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Post by mikes1531 on Aug 27, 2014 18:05:47 GMT
Thanks for the quick response, chris. Do you think AC would have spotted the problem themselves eventually? Or does this sort of error catching require checking by lenders? Well, chris did say above: " We are reviewing things internally to tighten our procedures - when there have been one off events too much has been done manually which has allowed human error to creep in. More will be automated in the coming weeks to make sure that we stamp it out.", which kind of implies they have already realised that they should have spotted it before it had an effect and are taking steps to ensure it will be better. Your interpretation of chris's comment is interesting. I took it as nothing more than an appropriate reaction to the discovery that a procedural error had occurred and a desire to prevent a recurrence.
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ramblin rose
Member of DD Central
“Some people grumble that roses have thorns; I am grateful that thorns have roses.” — Alphonse Karr
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Post by ramblin rose on Aug 27, 2014 18:08:14 GMT
.....................Our new solution is far more elegant whilst giving us even more flexibility. I'm liking the sound of all of that. More elegant and more flexible is the best direction for software design in my experience. (If only I'd aimed for 'more elegant' and 'more flexible' on a personal level    )
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Post by mrclondon on Aug 27, 2014 19:23:50 GMT
Thanks to some detective work by chris and team I now have the missing interest. I am however surprised there are no basic cross checks built into the software, i.e. if the payment schedule value £xxxx.xx does not equal the amount credited to lender accounts £yyyy.yy then ring alarm bells. If the response to such an alert was a prompt email to all affected lenders saying "we've spotted a problem, please bear with us whilst we fix it", there would have been no need for me to post details of the issue on here. Much of my career has been spent in the chemical industry where the concept of a mass balance is used to detect any leaks or mis-routings. I'm sure the same concept could be used when money is moved from one place to another.
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Post by chris on Aug 27, 2014 19:28:07 GMT
Thanks to some detective work by chris and team I now how the missing interest. I am however surprised there are no basic cross checks built into the software, i.e. if payment schedule value £xxxx.xx does not equal the amount credited to lender accounts £yyyy.yy then ring alarm bells. If the response to such an alert was a prompt email to all affected lenders saying "we've spotted a problem, please bear with us whilst we fix it", there would have been no need for me to post details of the issue on here. Much of my career has been spent in the chemical industry where the concept of a mass balance is used to detect any leaks or mis-routings. I'm sure the same concept could be used when money is moved from one place to another. There was no underpayment - the deferred interest was paid to the current owners of the loan units rather than being directed to the sellers. So the totals paid out added up to the expected amount thus no alarm bells were rung. Unfortunately this was a relatively subtle bug that would be very hard to detect automatically as the algorithm required to detect the mispayment would be near identical to the one used to make the payment in the first place. As mentioned elsewhere this entire subsystem is being replaced with a more elegant and less complicated design.
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Post by Ton ⓉⓞⓃ on Aug 27, 2014 21:36:52 GMT
Thanks to some detective work by chris and team I now how the missing interest. I am however surprised there are no basic cross checks built into the software, i.e. if payment schedule value £xxxx.xx does not equal the amount credited to lender accounts £yyyy.yy then ring alarm bells. If the response to such an alert was a prompt email to all affected lenders saying "we've spotted a problem, please bear with us whilst we fix it", there would have been no need for me to post details of the issue on here. Much of my career has been spent in the chemical industry where the concept of a mass balance is used to detect any leaks or mis-routings. I'm sure the same concept could be used when money is moved from one place to another. There was no underpayment - the deferred interest was paid to the current owners of the loan units rather than being directed to the sellers. So the totals paid out added up to the expected amount thus no alarm bells were rung. Unfortunately this was a relatively subtle bug that would be very hard to detect automatically as the algorithm required to detect the mispayment would be near identical to the one used to make the payment in the first place. As mentioned elsewhere this entire subsystem is being replaced with a more elegant and less complicated design. Do you think that the complete interest payment re-calculation would've spotted it?
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