Zopa in the current climate

CoogarUK

jamesd wrote: »

Zopa is a business.

How much - if any - damage to that business do you think might have been caused by shipping me over here?

jamesd wrote: »

What they are saying is "over the last 12 months our lenders have made an annual return of 9.1%".

Yes, that's a good bit of spin. Something Which Zopa are very adept at and similar in nature to the oft-unachievable 'typical' APRs it quotes on the same page to attract new borrowers.

jamesd

CoogarUK wrote: »

How much - if any - damage to that business do you think might have been caused by shipping me over here?

None. You're keeping topics about Zopa recent, helping to make people more aware of Zopa. You're also generating a useful amount of controversy and that, in moderate doses, is good for message boards, since it adds a little excitement.

Your most potentially interesting criticisms aren't hard to counter with facts that anyone can check, so there's no reason to expect them to be very effective. That's currently tending to overshadow your genuine and merited issues, since you're going too far with your criticism. Same problem as you had over on the Zopa message boards.

CoogarUK wrote: »

Yes, that's a good bit of spin. Something Which Zopa are very adept at and similar in nature to the oft-unachievable 'typical' APRs it quotes on the same page to attract new borrowers.

I have summary figures available from the time I started lending there until 28 November. During that period I made 32 loans of total value £2,310. The rate on those loans averaged 16.9% before fee and bad debt allowance, 13.0% after deducting Zopa fee and Zopa's bad debt estimate.

In December I deliberately switched to moving money and experimenting with a different part of the market, so I lowered my target rates. At present the My Loan Book screen for my lending shows that of all active loans I have at Zopa the initial rate before fee and bad debt is 14.7% on loans of total value £3,150. Some have had delayed payments, none have defaulted. Three loans have been 100% repaid so far; their average rate was 16.14% before Zopa fee and there was no bad debt on them.

Of course, I'm not average, since I pick and choose when to lend, pay very careful attention to the market and lend in less popular markets. Someone who did less work would do less well, but there's still no reason to doubt Zopa's claim.

CoogarUK

jamesd wrote: »

there's still no reason to doubt Zopa's claim.

Just like Zopa, you're confusing rates with returns

jamesd

Zopa wrote returns, which I assume is after fee[STRIKE] and bad debt[/STRIKE].

The numbers for me are rates and predicted returns after fee and bad debt allowance. Once I experience some bad debt the two will differ.

What are your rates and returns for the last year? After all, you claim Zopa is wrong, so do your own numbers support your claim?

CoogarUK

jamesd wrote: »

Zopa wrote returns, which I assume is after fee and bad debt.

A rate is only a return if you manage to keep all your money lent out all of the time at that rate. Zopa should make clear what their quoted figure actually means instead of leaving you to make assumptions.

jamesd

One correction to that: The 9.1% is the "Average rate enjoyed by lenders on money lent over the last 12 months (after fees and before bad debt)". So no need for an assumption any more.

The 15 December bad debt spreadsheet shows that so far since Zopa started £29.5 million has been lent, £52,546 is defaulted (so 0.18% total bad debt for all years) and £112,486 is in the collections process (so including bad debt, that's 0.56% if every loan in collections was to default).

For the markets only, no listings, the expected life of loan bad debt prediction weighted by lending into each market is 2.3% and the actual bad debt is 0.52% so far. That will increase as the time since the loans were made increases.

CoogarUK

jamesd wrote: »

One correction to that: The 9.1% is the "Average rate enjoyed by lenders on money lent over the last 12 months (after fees and before bad debt)". So no need for an assumption any more.

Now instead of assuming, you're putting words into Zopa's mouth. What the home page actually states is "That's right, over the last 12 months our lenders have made an annual return of 9.1%."

Which I still uphold to be somewhat misleading.

I don't know how they manage it but Zopa's spin seems to fool even some intelligent people into hearing what they want to hear.

Good job I'm no fool.

McPete_2

CoogarUK wrote: »

Now instead of assuming, you're putting words into Zopa's mouth. What the home page actually states is "That's right, over the last 12 months our lenders have made an annual return of 9.1%."

Which I still uphold to be somewhat misleading.

I don't know how they manage it but Zopa's spin seems to fool even some intelligent people into hearing what they want to hear.

Good job I'm no fool.

lol, you two are quite funny to watch

But in any event, you are both right, you're just looking at different pages

"Average rate enjoyed by lenders on money lent over the last 12 months
(after fees and before bad debt)"
http://uk.zopa.com/ZopaWeb/public/lending/lending-at-zopa.html

"That's right, over the last 12 months our lenders have made an annual return of 9.1%."
http://uk.zopa.com/ZopaWeb/

CoogarUK

McPete wrote: »

lol, you two are quite funny to watch

I aim to please :beer:

So, Zopa's home page is actually quite misleading then :cool:

Over to you, jamesd...

Dooooooooooooooonut

Coogar... I don't know what you usually do but believe me the role of common sense on a financial forum goes like this:

B: I'm going to invest all my money in Perry Como back catalogue
A: This is a silly idea
B: No it isn't
A: Yes it is
B: No it isn't
A: Whatever you buffoon
B: FINAL WARNING TO A FOR CALLING IDIOTS BUFFOONS

then 6 months later

B: AGHGHGHGH Where is all my money
A: Told you you buffoon
B: A IS BANNED FOR DARING TO SPEAK THE TRUTH

You seem to have your head screwed on... don't worry about B... better to keep them in contempt even I think