A bad month?

Defaulted loans repay over an extended period, many of my pre-safeguard defaulted loans are still repaying. The 'Defaults' are going to be ahead of recoveries, a bit like initially there appeared to be no defaults until the 4m threshold appeared. Not sure what period you are talking about for plus I have about 14% of defaults with no payment yet, but most of them are so recent you cannot assume they will not repay at least something. 

So 25%. I do realise that some defaults get paid back eventually, even partially.  I'm not looking at statistically perfect numbers here - I'm just interested to see what % of defaults have never paid anything as things stand in our loan books.  Numbers of defaults as a % of my total current loan book are 11/1500 so I'm not moaning at all - if it continues like that I'll be pleased. 

Technically, all of these can be split into those that never had any intention of paying, and fraud impersonation. This presumes someone who had intention could have made at least the first payment from the remains of the loan cash!

There is a difference, because intention​ by the real borrower is very difficult to ascertain, especially in the higher risk Z+ markets where borrowers will either have a limited history of credit by young/transient/thin credit file customers, or have impaired previous credit. It's in the risk of this lending, especially automated lending with neither  manual underwriting nor conversation to ascertain intent.

No payment by fraud impersonation is altogether different. And if many of these loans are fraud, then that is an issue that Zopa should deal with. The impersonation frauds at RateSetter were negligible statistically. I still remember most of their damn names.... And we've had none at The Money Platform.

But we will never know with Zopa's first payment defaults which is which, as they don't report the difference. Not even in the loanbook download. Which is a shame, because in Z+ I would put any fraud losses at the door of Zopa, and lenders should be protected from fraud losses across all lending products. In my opinion.

Kevin.

Since E-class loans are paying interest of 25% (as against <5% for A-class), one can infer that 1 in 5 is expected to fail. You win some, you lose some. That's the way it works with lending. Question is, are you winning over the longer term? And how much is your bank going to give you in your savings account?

In that case I'm stuffed!  Have just done a search on my Current Loan Book.  501/1515 are for a car.  Now, can any clever person tell me how to search for Z+ loans that are for a car?  I know it's possible using Excel but to be honest I find that format of the book very cumbersome.  Is there a way on the website?

I have some sympathy with your question about morality; In the case of an impersonal system such as Zopa, lending to E-Class borrowers at all is probabaly on the margin, but where else could they go -especially if they need a car to get to work at unsocial hours, or to take a relative to hospital, etc?

I know a few cases where friends or relations have given their old car to people like this, and in some cases charities can provide home appliances to people whose old one has failed. Our church has a debt-counselling branch of the charity "Christians Against Poverty". A lot of the cases he deals with are a result of family breakdown, or the borrower is suffering from depression or other mental illness / disability.

 Maybe Zopa could set up a charity to deal with cases that even the Zopa lending team don't feel they can help with a commercial loan, and invite Zopa lenders to contribute?

The way I read the Bible, the law applying to Israelites was that they shouldn't charge unfair interest to a fellow-Israelite (or take life-necessities as security), but were free to lend at whatever rate to people of other ethnic origin/religious persuasion. If applying that to ourselves, it then depends on who you classify as a "brother".