Peer-to-peer lending sites: MSE guide discussion

Nardge

tcallaghan93 - Many thanks for sharing your thoughts with me...

I asked the same question you kindly answered on the p2p independent forum, the consensus was as you've said...

My query stemmed from the fact I'd simply invested two large lump sums into both the above, thus the % 'parcels' were much larger in actual value than if I'd invested several smaller sums. 1% of £10,000 is much larger than 1% of £100. In consequence to the larger value of the % 'parcels' so created, the defaults were substantially higher in value than if I'd kept turning the autobid on and off in the first instance, whilst the funds were being invested...

It's a lesson learnt for the future!

With Kind Regards

jamesd

shoi wrote: »

They have said that they had expensive legal advice that the authorisation was sufficient

The FCA has said that they never had permission and are investigating how an entry saying that a firm with that name ended up in the FCA database of firms with interim permission.

If you instead prefer a view that they didn't need permission then no income tax relief is available because that relief is only available to firms with permission making 36h loans.

A potential glimmer of hope is that the FCA and HMRC might agree that an entry in the database should be regarded as sufficient, however it got there. I haven't seen anything to suggest that this is happening.

Betuaintgotthis

Hi All
Just wondering what peoples experience has been with Grupeer. Opened an account and made first deposit a month or two ago, took a while for funds to appear after verifying source of funds etc. Decided on making a second deposit expecting this to be a lot smoother this time but more hoops. I'm required to get transferwise to confirm that the funds are mine. Sounds simple but transferwise appear to be difficult company to work with and getting confirmation is like getting blood from a stone. Thankfully I have only tested the waters with small amounts but really thinking this may be more hassle than its worth. If I can't deposit easily I hate to think how difficult withdrawal will be. Interested to hear other peoples experiences have been.

shoi

jamesd wrote: »

The FCA has said that they never had permission and are investigating how an entry saying that a firm with that name ended up in the FCA database of firms with interim permission.

If you instead prefer a view that they didn't need permission then no income tax relief is available because that relief is only available to firms with permission making 36h loans.

A potential glimmer of hope is that the FCA and HMRC might agree that an entry in the database should be regarded as sufficient, however it got there. I haven't seen anything to suggest that this is happening.

Well their stance is (was) that the permission was handed on from a related company, and I imagine with a bit of shopping around you might get some lawyer to agree that it's possibly allowable to do so. The real point is how are we meant to know if this will hold up. So yes the FCA have a responsibility to check them out so we don't have to (quote frm FCA advert)

Rupert_The_Bear

I have invested in FC over the years after reading about them on MSE.
I have sold 'loan parts' occasionally to withdraw, and the selling process has taken 1 to 4 days.
Last Sunday (9 days ago) I initiated a sale to enable a withdrawal. After 5 days I enquired as to when I could get my money and was told it can now take up to three weeks.
Has anyone else experienced this ? I'm by nature a bit of a worrier, and I'm sure there's nothing to worry about, but a bit of reassurance would be most welcome !

Nardge

Rupert_The_Bear wrote: »

I have invested in FC over the years after reading about them on MSE.
I have sold 'loan parts' occasionally to withdraw, and the selling process has taken 1 to 4 days.
Last Sunday (9 days ago) I initiated a sale to enable a withdrawal. After 5 days I enquired as to when I could get my money and was told it can now take up to three weeks.
Has anyone else experienced this ? I'm by nature a bit of a worrier, and I'm sure there's nothing to worry about, but a bit of reassurance would be most welcome !

Rupert The Bear - I’m afraid that’s exactly how long it’s taking at the moment. I sought to sell all my FC loans exactly three weeks ago as per my above posts here, with the aim of reinvesting in tiny amounts so as to create ‘tiny parcels’ and minimise the monetary value of defaults. The completion e-mail only came through today (3 weeks after the start of sale), except there was nothing completed about it, as there remained a large number of unsold loans (and neither wrapped up by missed borrower payments nor by pending defaults to account for that fact). As a result, I put these unsold loans back on sale for the second time today...

Take a look under ‘FC’ on the ‘P2P Independent Forum’...
You will find a very large number of FC Investors discussing all things FC-related there...
I suspect there's even a Thread discussing your topic

Hope that helps
With Kind Regards

MoneyGeoff

Rupert_The_Bear wrote: »

I have invested in FC over the years after reading about them on MSE.
I have sold 'loan parts' occasionally to withdraw, and the selling process has taken 1 to 4 days.
Last Sunday (9 days ago) I initiated a sale to enable a withdrawal. After 5 days I enquired as to when I could get my money and was told it can now take up to three weeks.
Has anyone else experienced this ? I'm by nature a bit of a worrier, and I'm sure there's nothing to worry about, but a bit of reassurance would be most welcome !

Have a look at these threads:

totally-pulled-out-due-losses

long-withdraw-funds

I have had sales queued for over 3 weeks now and it looks like others have too. Also people are saying that buying is taking several days too?

It's taking so long to sell loans that they are still for sale when the next repayment is due. This causes the loans to go to Processing and then fall out of the sales queue, meaning they have to be manually sold again and you start at the back of the queue!

jamesd

shoi wrote: »

Well their stance is (was) that the permission was handed on from a related company, and I imagine with a bit of shopping around you might get some lawyer to agree that it's possibly allowable to do so.

According to the FCA:

1. the related company ceased trading before the interim permission system was introduced so it wasn't eligible for interim permission
2. authorisation can't be transferred between firms. (Though a firm can lend as an "authorised representative of another firm, as Huddle Capital does.)

shoi wrote: »

So yes the FCA have a responsibility to check them out so we don't have to (quote frm FCA advert)

The board and two most senior managers of the FCA have apparently recognised and accepted that the FCA database was neglected and that they need to do far better.

jamesd

Rupert_The_Bear wrote: »

Last Sunday (9 days ago) I initiated a sale to enable a withdrawal. After 5 days I enquired as to when I could get my money and was told it can now take up to three weeks.
Has anyone else experienced this ?

Not at FC personally but it's normal supply and demand variation. There are two broad categories so secondary market:

1. Fixed price, queue length varies with supply and demand and there's nothing you can do about it except wait.
2. Variable pricing, if you have a more urgent need to sell you can cut your price to help that along. If less urgent or no hurry at all you can wait for a higher price.

masonic

In another twist to the Collateral story, several investors have reported getting an email outlining their positions according to the reconstructed platform data. These appear to have been sent only to a limited number of people (I haven't received one), and the inaccuracies are in part from the administrators treating loan parts that were listed for sale as being sold and not counted towards the total balance. There's some discussion here in the purple forum. Strangely nothing picked up in the blue forum.

In other news, the secret to whiter Whites can be found here and here, perhaps maintaining some distance from Curries is part of the solution.