Dozens bank account?

Zanderman

eskbanker wrote: »

So, if rob_dozens reappears on here, perhaps he'd be good enough to comment on the issues raised by londoninvestor last month and to advise when there'll be a properly-constructed website available to view meaningful documentation rather than trying to throw people off the scent by pointing them to videos....

Perhaps he'd also be kind enough to follow the forum rules and get MSE permission to post as a company rep! If he can't follow simple rules on here I don't have much faith in his 'bank'.

Edit: Oh, I see his posts have now been removed. As indeed they should be. Maybe he'll be back when he's read the rules!

eskbanker

Zanderman wrote: »

Perhaps he'd also be kind enough to follow the forum rules and get MSE permission to post as a company rep! If he can't follow simple rules on here I don't have much faith in his 'bank'.

Edit: Oh, I see his posts have now been removed. As indeed they should be. Maybe he'll be back when he's read the rules!

To be fair, he did politely state

I work for dozens and I have requested 'verified' status before responding (as per the rules) but since I am still waiting after several days, I hope no-one will mind if I chip in briefly?

although if he genuinely had applied then I'd have thought that his posts would have survived....

Zanderman

eskbanker wrote: »

....although if he genuinely had applied then I'd have thought that his posts would have survived....

Indeed... a whole month has passed since his posts.
I don't think MSE would take that long to approve him.
Which suggests either they did not approve or they weren't actually asked.
Neither scenario looks impressive for dozens.

londoninvestor

Since my original post, it looks like they have revised the description of the bonds:
https://www.dozens.com/blog/our-5-bonds-everything-you-want-to-know/

Key changes are:
a) The "trust bonds" backed by a ringfenced cash pool (which was originally going to be the first £1m of the emerging market product) are now described as a separate product, which they acknowledge to be a cross-subsidised loss leader.
b) The emerging markets product is more clearly described as a risky one.
c) There's a bit more clarity that the FSCS protection here is not the savings protection, it's the investment protection.

This is certainly clearer than it was.

The "trust bond" still leaves me with questions - particularly because it's going to be a listed bond. If you're going to do something which is basically a fixed-rate savings product, and you accept it's a loss leader, why not just offer it as a savings account?

With the bond structure, the question asked in the post that eskbanker quoted is still very relevant:
"Are the board of trustees going to be independent of Project Imagine and run at an arms length so that in the (hopefully unlikey) case of Project Imagine going bankrupt the administrators would not have access to this to pay to creditors? I think transparency here is really important."

londoninvestor

Also, the "secret investments for shadowy rich people" prime-bank-ish stuff has mostly gone, though we still have:

we also want to offer a return to the people who have saved up £10k plus and currently aren’t getting the same returns as those with £1m+. That’s why we’ve come up with a structure where we purchase high interest bonds at larger amounts and create new smaller, more accessible bonds, with their own NEX listing and security. In this way we give you access to absolute-return seeking investment opportunities usually only available to those with £1m+.

Bit sceptical about this. There are EM bond funds out there, and you don't need £1m to invest in an OEIC or ETF! However, if dozens do package up EM bonds into a CDO-like product that smooths out fluctuating returns into a fixed coupon, then that is indeed different from most retail products. CDOs have their own risks of course...

ozaz

Zanderman wrote: »

Indeed... a whole month has passed since his posts.
I don't think MSE would take that long to approve him.
Which suggests either they did not approve or they weren't actually asked.
Neither scenario looks impressive for dozens.

On the Monzo forum he says he's still waiting
https://community.monzo.com/t/dozens-discussion-feedback/50969/704

Brown_Bear

From the 'Dozens' website:

''We’re aged 18-58 and 75% women, and certainly not the usual group you’d expect to be starting a banking alternative.''

So these are the people drafted in on minimum wage 'zero hour' contracts to answer the phone?

Was this supposed to inspire confidence in this company? Together with all the photos of happy people at some kind of festival it made me suspicious straight away.

And any genuine company that has some kind of online ''community'' instead of a proper customer services dept is usually rubbish (eg most mobile phone companies).

So no upfront explanation of what the actual product is - unless you go into their ''blog''.

The ''blog'' contains a mention of EM bonds. In fact is says:

Let’s call these the ‘Emerging Market (EM) bonds’

''Lets call them''?

Well, are they EM bonds or not?

But no mention of which bonds and to which companies or govts. So the most important facts - ie where your money is invested is nowhere to be seen.

In fact most of their website is patronising waffle - with words such as ''empower''.

Avoid. Avoid. Avoid.

Zanderman

ozaz wrote: »

On the Monzo forum he says he's still waiting
https://community.monzo.com/t/dozens-discussion-feedback/50969/704

Indeed he does, but as most of what he and dozens website seem to offer is unsubstantiated and/or waffle (ref various posts above) I'd say that he would say that wouldn't he!

I'm sure if MSE think dozens merit an official line they'll give them one. Perhaps they need to ask in a different way? Or with a different person? We don't, actually, even know if Rob even works for them - he doesn't quite fit the "We’re aged 18-58 and 75% women" profile but maybe he's one of the minority...

michaels

Could be Roberta

Zanderman

michaels wrote: »

Could be Roberta

I think the avatar image had a beard? But anything goes these days...