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Post by portlandbill on Apr 11, 2017 8:20:05 GMT
Having deposited my seed £1k a couple of months ago and watched it being invested quite quickly to the 99.8% that it is now, I was quite happy and indeed only yesterday started to sell some of my shorter dated loans on SS with a view to moving it across to BM. SS's lack of transparency over their provision fund and the decreasing availability of acceptable risk 12% loans being the key factors.
I'm going to have to rethink this now, especially if BM proceed as detailed and won't keep to the current fees for current investors and/or change the tax situation on those fees.
I'm already investing as much as I want to in Z, especially as + seems to be having a "blip", so I'm going to have to try another platform. Recommendations? I've signed up with MT but am struggling to understand how that platform works. I might have to look into it a bit closer.
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Greenwood2
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Post by Greenwood2 on Apr 11, 2017 8:21:30 GMT
ndThey are not promising extra returns to compensate for higher fees, target rates have been reduced.
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Post by stevefindlay on Apr 11, 2017 8:25:29 GMT
As you can imagine, I've been reading all of these messages studiously. I empathise with the disappointment. I don't intend to repeat the rationale as set out in the email and at the start of this forum. But I would like to add the following: this business decision wasn't taken lightly. We pride ourselves on being contactable and responsive to client questions, and it is clear a certain level of client engagement is required with our model (BondMason is a "transparent box" rather than a "black box" as one forum member once stated). Given this, we were presented with a difficult choice: - (1) Significantly reduce client engagement / not engage with clients
- (2) Continue to engage with all clients, increase the minimum to £20-25k+ and keep the fee at 1%
- (3) Continue to engage with all clients, increase the minimum to £5k and increase the blended fee
We opted for choice (3) as we wanted to keep as many of the clients with smaller balances as possible. Personally, I will be sad to see many of the clients with smaller balances leave us - but I understand their decision for doing so, and do feel sorry for clients with smaller balances not able to reach £5k.
For those that do choose to liquidate and continue to invest in P2P Lending land, please stay vigilant - we fear for some bad operators and what they will do this year and next with client's money. This forum can be a very good indicator for troubled waters.
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Apr 11, 2017 8:29:20 GMT
I must confess to being disappointed by this move, and unsurprised to see the general discontent on here. I've been a fan of BondMason to date, and remain a fan of the model. The main problem I have is the way that this is proposed to be introduced, that it applies retrospectively to already invested lenders, and the fact that it comes so early in the life of a platform that has, frankly, promised much but not yet delivered fully in terms of returns for lenders. I see the headline rates, but a very small proportion of the members of this forum appear to be receiving anything like the XIRR that was forecast. If I'd had a few months of averaging 7% (after fees) then I'd feel a bit more comfortable about giving BM the benefit of the doubt. I agree with your sentiments - the motivation is clearly to try and address that failure to meet the expectation. Will it work...?
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nd
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Post by nd on Apr 11, 2017 8:31:01 GMT
ndThey are not promising extra returns to compensate for higher fees, target rates have been reduced. I know there isn't this guarantee/promise but I'd hope that with a smaller client base and more time spent sourcing the right loans and working with specialist lending companies (as mentioned in the email) my %age invested will increase and cover the additional fees.
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Liz
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Post by Liz on Apr 11, 2017 8:47:18 GMT
Having deposited my seed £1k a couple of months ago and watched it being invested quite quickly to the 99.8% that it is now, I was quite happy and indeed only yesterday started to sell some of my shorter dated loans on SS with a view to moving it across to BM. SS's lack of transparency over their provision fund and the decreasing availability of acceptable risk 12% loans being the key factors. I'm going to have to rethink this now, especially if BM proceed as detailed and won't keep to the current fees for current investors and/or change the tax situation on those fees. I'm already investing as much as I want to in Z, especially as + seems to be having a "blip", so I'm going to have to try another platform. Recommendations? I've signed up with MT but am struggling to understand how that platform works. I might have to look into it a bit closer. FS, where most loans pay 13%, twice the target on BM.
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bugs4me
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Post by bugs4me on Apr 11, 2017 8:56:37 GMT
I must confess to being disappointed by this move, and unsurprised to see the general discontent on here. I've been a fan of BondMason to date, and remain a fan of the model. The main problem I have is the way that this is proposed to be introduced, that it applies retrospectively to already invested lenders, and the fact that it comes so early in the life of a platform that has, frankly, promised much but not yet delivered fully in terms of returns for lenders. I see the headline rates, but a very small proportion of the members of this forum appear to be receiving anything like the XIRR that was forecast. If I'd had a few months of averaging 7% (after fees) then I'd feel a bit more comfortable about giving BM the benefit of the doubt. I agree with your sentiments - the motivation is clearly to try and address that failure to meet the expectation. Will it work...? Will wait and see I suppose. I'm at 77% invested and will add further funds when/if it reaches 90%. I refuse to have idle money sitting with BM or indeed anyone else when there are other opportunities available. The point made by stevefindlay reference other platforms is already here - many are simply withering on the vine so no need to see what happens over the next 12-24 months. No doubt there will be others. Whether I reach the minimum required is in the hands of BM - it is that simple. So whilst the amended T&Cs may merit some justification, it is incumbant upon BM to deliver those lending opportunities but at the moment it's looking doubtful IMO and I feel it is unrealistic to expect lenders to simply top-up their accounts with funds that will not be utilised. As an aside, if option (2) had been adopted as per Steve's post and lenders were in a position to deposit sufficient funds to attain that minimum, based on past performance funds would just have been sitting on the BM platform. So realistically, based upon the 7-28 days allocation 'commitment', IMO this was not an option.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 11, 2017 9:30:39 GMT
With the cash drag issue, effectively paying 1.5% (non-tax deductible) to have my money sitting uninvested for long periods is simply not going to happen.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 11, 2017 9:34:51 GMT
And one more thing I think BM might be miscalculating here.
A lot of us with small balances in BM actually have large overall balances spread across P2P. I, like many others I'm sure, always dip my toe into the water with small amounts first before committing heavily to a platform.
After all, we all know that talk is cheap. I like to see how a platform performs in practice.
BM punishing smaller investors like this will mean that my 'small balance' is now likely to become a zero balance rather than a larger one.
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Post by dan1 on Apr 11, 2017 9:39:30 GMT
As you can imagine, I've been reading all of these messages studiously. I empathise with the disappointment. I don't intend to repeat the rationale as set out in the email and at the start of this forum. But I would like to add the following: this business decision wasn't taken lightly. We pride ourselves on being contactable and responsive to client questions, and it is clear a certain level of client engagement is required with our model (BondMason is a "transparent box" rather than a "black box" as one forum member once stated). Given this, we were presented with a difficult choice: - (1) Significantly reduce client engagement / not engage with clients
- (2) Continue to engage with all clients, increase the minimum to £20-25k+ and keep the fee at 1%
- (3) Continue to engage with all clients, increase the minimum to £5k and increase the blended fee
We opted for choice (3) as we wanted to keep as many of the clients with smaller balances as possible. Personally, I will be sad to see many of the clients with smaller balances leave us - but I understand their decision for doing so, and do feel sorry for clients with smaller balances not able to reach £5k.
For those that do choose to liquidate and continue to invest in P2P Lending land, please stay vigilant - we fear for some bad operators and what they will do this year and next with client's money. This forum can be a very good indicator for troubled waters.
I appreciate the response, you must be thick skinned to continue to post on the forum after you've delivered news of a reduction in rates. With regard to the options, I would have preferred option (2), it is the fee hike that is the killer for me personally. As previously stated, it does hint at actively managed stocks & shares funds that I dislike so much. Funds of funds in particular where there are layers of fees. Is it possible for someone to set up a poll for the options. It would be interesting to see preferences from those on here. I'm not suggesting that BM should take any note given that we account for a very small proportion of investors but it would be interesting nonetheless. Perhaps BM is suited to the less active P2P investor, not typical of those who visit these waters. At 6.5% I'd be considering a platform with a provision fund, say Growth Street and/or AC.
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littleoldlady
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Post by littleoldlady on Apr 11, 2017 9:40:12 GMT
I was not one who wanted to invest <5k, I wanted to invest much more. But "invest" means to earn money. Since they could not even invest 4k fully - in fact the invested portion was going down not up - I was not prepared to have even more cash sitting idle.
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Post by dan1 on Apr 11, 2017 9:43:11 GMT
A related question: those who are liquidating - do you receive any email confirmation of this? I don't see anything, and I also don't see any change on the BM platform where I'm logged in either. There was a note that popped up on screen to confirm the request had been received, but obviously that's gone once you navigate away from the page after liquidating. That's all I've ever got straight after hitting the button to take money out of BM; it could be better. I did the same (withdrew cash then liquidated 100% of holdings) and received no confirmation emails. The platform has not reached full maturity (think these small niggles and the issue with the wrong date on the tax statement) so increasing fees at this stage is perhaps unwise.
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oldgrumpy
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Post by oldgrumpy on Apr 11, 2017 9:50:18 GMT
With the cash drag issue, effectively paying 1.5% (non-tax deductible) to have my money sitting uninvested for long periods is simply not going to happen. To be fair to BM, the 1.5% will only be taken from funds which are actually invested, not the cash waiting.
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shuff27
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Post by shuff27 on Apr 11, 2017 9:52:51 GMT
As a low to mid level investor in BM (c.£9k) I feel that this change of direction has been on the cards for the last few months so I'm not really surprised.
BM has gleaned lots of useful info/feedback from this forum & come to the conclusion that its best business model going forward is to target relatively big hitters who are happy to invest 5 or 6 figure sums without needing to check the finer points (i.e. an occasional default/crystallised loss is not a concern to them) of their loan book every week.
I'll never be in that category so I'll leave my current funds with BM for a few more months while the dust settles but beyond that probably liquidate gradually as & when more appealing opportunities (P2P or otherwise) arise.
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littleoldlady
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Post by littleoldlady on Apr 11, 2017 9:53:05 GMT
With the cash drag issue, effectively paying 1.5% (non-tax deductible) to have my money sitting uninvested for long periods is simply not going to happen. To be fair to BM, the 1.5% will only be taken from funds which are actually invested, not the cash waiting. To be fair to @eurasian69 I suppose he means opportunity cost.
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