Excited but Nervous - Transferring Final Salary Pension

jamesd

Right. That's why I pay attention to it across several platforms and also have lots of credit available, from multiple providers. I'd keep more on deposit if I didn't have so much more than I expected to need urgently. Not having enough readily available money for emergencies isn't a good idea.

A few weeks ago someone at Ablrate had a rapid need to sell many tens of thousands of Pounds and offered it at discounts of up to about 4%, making the effective interest for a 12% loan about 14%. I placed a bid and they sold more than ten thousand Pounds to me. I don't know he exact amount but it was more than £50k and could have been over £100k that they sold in a couple or three days, from just one loan.

At MoneyThing there are loans that aren't normally available and still sell quickly even when the market is moving relatively slowly, as it was a few weeks ago when it took about ten days for me to sell some of a big loan. No way to offer discounts there to speed things up, it's a queue with only one price regardless of how urgent or otherwise your need to sell is.

At both, smaller loan sizes or tranches tend to sell more quickly than bigger ones.

I also have rapidly available money in a S&S ISA as another fallback option and soon will have similarly rapidly available pension money.

While it's important not to have too much in cash for long times I'm big picture cautious and keep lots of low volatility options available, always, even when invested. And I'm not reluctant to have lots in cash or money market funds when that seems suitable. I've had more than £100k in money market funds inside a pension for a while at times within the last couple of years, though not as a long term position.

Though one recent study actually found that in the conditions around at the moment in the US and at various past times money market could beat bonds because bonds aren't offering enough risk premium. Personally I prefer P2P to both in current conditions.