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Post by Financial Thing on Jan 29, 2016 15:08:44 GMT
For example, MorganStanley made this point in a Dec15 report on US securitized marketplace lending.. Believing anything Morgan Stanley writes is foolish. They have a long record of writing reports that are merely fluff.
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Post by Financial Thing on Jan 29, 2016 15:03:29 GMT
Looking at company records, all the main players in the P2P market appear to be making losses, HUGE losses. How are we as individuals participating in this sunrise industry meant to know each companies access to liquidity and willingness to invest enormous time and energy into a potentially unlimited loss making enterprise. Its complicated and impossible to estimate in my book but sometime/ somewhere one of them will likely go pop. ^^ This... I'm surprised more people aren't worried about the information on file at Companies House. Some of the platforms are heavily in debt and having to borrow more to float through the losses. For those who love evaluating business on AC and TC, maybe it would be prudent to do the same evaluation on the platforms and whether they can reach profitability anytime soon. Maybe running a p2p platform isn't as profitable as one might think. westonkevRS said it perfectly "...my #1 concern 1) Platform failure due to operational losses (i.e. never getting to profitability and running out of cash) is for me the biggest danger. And this will be exasperated in a recession with less lending and lender-led liquidity reduction. "
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Post by Financial Thing on Jan 28, 2016 18:49:51 GMT
I have no qualms about the FCA's funding model, nor about the fact that some of its leaders were bankers. The FCA could do with more experienced people from the industry, not fewer. If FCA regulation of P2P has limited value, it is not for the reasons that you suggest but because the scope of the FCA's P2P regulation is narrow but the compliance costs for the platforms (which are all pretty small businesses) are high. This will ultimately mean lower rates for us. The cost/benefit is unclear. On the whole, though, I think it is a necessary evil and I'd rather have FCA regulation than not have it. There are some popular platforms that I'd not consider putting money into until I know that they have passed muster with the FCA. Certainly good points Mr Pikestaff. I would ask however just what does passing muster with the FCA achieve? We have seen countless times within the banking and financial industry that a thumbs up from a compliance authority can be achieved through numerous ways (often times a quick backhander) and quite frankly for me doesn't hold much weight. Having experienced bankers leading the FCA puts the financial businesses interests first and not the consumers. When money and banking is involved, profit will always come before consumer interests.
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Post by Financial Thing on Jan 28, 2016 17:40:28 GMT
I have to admit that when I saw "Regulated by the FCA" on a platforms website it made me feel a bit better about investing. After further research, it seems to me that FCA regulation gives an extremely false sense of safety. From Wikipedia / FCA's website: "The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is a financial regulatory body in the United Kingdom, but operates independently of the UK government, and is financed by charging fees to members of the financial services industry"
Also some of the leaders are ex and future investment banker executives (Goldman Sachs ). So does having FCA permission really make P2P any safer? I think not at all. If the authority is funded by its members and more like a privately run system, then I believe its members control the authority (seen this story play out before). Just something to stir the mind.
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Post by Financial Thing on Jan 28, 2016 17:33:59 GMT
First of all thanks to c88dnf for this information. Very disturbing to see that FC is losing so much money. From reading the Companies House Reports It seems like they continuing to borrow from their sister company (up to £30m) to float through their growth phase. I'm concerned whether they can survive. Impressed with Ratesetter (well done westonkevRS , I know you are responsible for this ). This is a stark realization on how aware we need to be of a platforms ability to operate as profitable business in order to last longer then their loan offerings. For example Landbay made £64k in revenues and lost £562k in 2014. Isn't anyone else concerned here? Maybe loan defaults are the least of our worries.
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Post by Financial Thing on Jan 27, 2016 22:55:29 GMT
If you want some good SM deals, I've placed all my loans up for sale. I simply have a bad feeling in my gut about this platform.
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Post by Financial Thing on Jan 26, 2016 22:32:20 GMT
The thing I dislike so much about prefunding is I have no clue how much I will be allocated. I would rather there be lower bidding limits than prefunding.
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Post by Financial Thing on Jan 26, 2016 16:17:59 GMT
Just noticed cashback had been credited and went to withdraw it to find they now have a new process. The good news is they're moving over to automated withdrawals, but it does mean you need to (re)add your bank account details to then be verified (with experian apparently so may take a little time). Then when it's done you're offered a choice of accounts when you to to withdraw and hey presto! No more waiting for some poor moose to process your transaction. (PS as rent is due on the 25th this year you may want to get yours added before then ) Is there still a withdrawal fee?
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Post by Financial Thing on Jan 26, 2016 16:03:27 GMT
MoneyThing I don't see the need to space out by 5 mins. I've never had an issue with the current system. And please don't move to a 10am time. I work overseas often. Oh and at the moment, I vote against pre-funding. Yes, and many people are working at 4 pm I would imagine most people who work at 4pm are also working at 10am. If the time was such an issue then the loans wouldn't be filling so quickly. The system is working fine as is.
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Post by Financial Thing on Jan 26, 2016 14:33:55 GMT
MoneyThing I don't see the need to space out by 5 mins. I've never had an issue with the current system. And please don't move to a 10am time. I work overseas often. Oh and at the moment, I vote against pre-funding.
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General P2x Discussion
2016 crash
Jan 25, 2016 1:34:39 GMT
Post by Financial Thing on Jan 25, 2016 1:34:39 GMT
I would certainly agree with you in most cases. But since you're on this forum, I'd go so far to say that financial markets interest you, as they do I. When I watched the film (read the book also), it really astounded me that there were a few people who knew the meltdown was coming, and prepared themselves perfectly for it. As much as I've studied this topic, I can ascertain The Big Short was a highly accurate account. I used to think that no one could predict the future of the financial markets as many of the financial experts are wrong most of the time. Now I 100% believe that there are people who have access to information that others don't and they know exactly what's going on in the markets. In fact in many cases, the markets can be controlled and manipulated ... I'd also note that when people talk about losses the market experienced due to CDS or synthetic CDOs this is, by construction, nonsense. For every dollar of CDS protection sold, there was a dollar bought. These are derivatives so there is no net long position. Many investors, funds, banks etc lost an awful lot of money but there were (and had to be) many who made very substantial sums. Some investment banks did not lose money in 2008 but did take massive credit provisions for "potential losses" that were never realized; there was no political upside to being a profitable bank in 2008. As these reserves were released in later years this led to huge profits. There were huge losses experienced by pension funds who bought into CDO's that were packaged full or worthless mortgage notes given fraudulently high credit ratings by Standard & Poor. The banks knew the loans were worthless and continued forward since they knew a government bailout would happen should they fail.
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Post by Financial Thing on Jan 24, 2016 15:11:32 GMT
The reason I mentioned this clerical issue in the first place is there are some of our fellow investors who don't look at the documents. I didn't want someone to invest blindly thinking the land had planning permission. (Yes I know in a perfect world everyone would read everything but it simply doesn't happen).
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General P2x Discussion
2016 crash
Jan 24, 2016 15:07:31 GMT
Post by Financial Thing on Jan 24, 2016 15:07:31 GMT
I highly recommend watching the movie The Big Short that just came out. It is a fascination but chilling account of why the 2008 financial meltdown occurred (and why another one will occur soon) They always use to say never let the truth get in the way of a good story, and this is probably true of films as well. If the combined knowledge of the planets financial experts can't agree on whats going to happen next week (let alone next year), how can a load of film producers be so sure. Ultimately people make films to make money, not to predict the future. I would certainly agree with you in most cases. But since you're on this forum, I'd go so far to say that financial markets interest you, as they do I. When I watched the film (read the book also), it really astounded me that there were a few people who knew the meltdown was coming, and prepared themselves perfectly for it. As much as I've studied this topic, I can ascertain The Big Short was a highly accurate account. I used to think that no one could predict the future of the financial markets as many of the financial experts are wrong most of the time. Now I 100% believe that there are people who have access to information that others don't and they know exactly what's going on in the markets. In fact in many cases, the markets can be controlled and manipulated. I really recommend the film.
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General P2x Discussion
2016 crash
Jan 23, 2016 17:26:18 GMT
Post by Financial Thing on Jan 23, 2016 17:26:18 GMT
I highly recommend watching the movie The Big Short that just came out. It is a fascinating but chilling account of why the 2008 financial meltdown occurred (and why another one will occur soon)
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FundingSecure (FS) in Administration
Defaulted loans
Jan 23, 2016 16:27:17 GMT
Post by Financial Thing on Jan 23, 2016 16:27:17 GMT
How about those cheeky London parking spaces? Any news?
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