Disintermediation

Author

Date

22nd November 2016

There has been much speculation about the potential impact of the IFA and wealth manager communities eventually throwing their weight behind the P2P sector. Why they haven’t done so up until now hinges on the argument that without FCA approval they have not felt able or willing to recommend P2P products to their clients. The FCA’s lengthy deliberations regarding which P2P platforms are granted full authorisation – a process that is still ongoing for most of the major platforms, including ArchOver – have obviously not helped the cause.

Crucially, authorised status will dictate which platforms will be able to offer an Innovative Finance ISA product. It is widely anticipated that, for those who pass the FCA test, this could act as the trigger that will prompt IFAs/wealth managers to give their active endorsement to P2P through IF ISAs. The hope is that, once the regulatory shackles come off, the floodgates will open as lenders/investors pile in to take advantage of tax free returns on P2P loans (obviously within annual ISA limits), which we know would generate far more attractive returns than those based on bank or building society deposits.

It all sounds great. My only question is: why do we need the wealth managers and IFAs now? Surely disintermediation lies at the very heart of the whole P2P lending project – a process by which the investor receives a greater share of the return because the middle man has been removed from the equation.

This can be easily demonstrated in the world of investment management where investors are forced to give up part of their gain in the form of fees. An investment of, say, £100,000 may produce an annual return of 7%, or £7,000. A return reduced to 6%, of £6,000, by fees would mean a reduction of £1,000 in one year alone. Over a period of five years, arithmetic shows that the cumulative loss would be £17,797, assuming annual returns are reinvested. Removing the middle man may involve slightly more effort on the part of the investor – virtually none if you are being charged fees to invest in a tracker fund – but the savings can be considerable. And it makes still less sense to be charged fees in the years when investments fall in value.

And the same applies to the world of debt finance where the banks are a classic case to point. For decades, they have enjoyed low cost of capital which, when combined with the low returns offered to depositors, explains how they can afford to maintain a presence in the High Street.

The internet has been one of the driving forces behind disintermediation – it allows the dissemination of information to large numbers of people at low cost. And the process has only just begun.

To ‘re-intermediate’ by inserting a layer of fee-charging organisations between the client and the product provider – IFAs, wealth managers and P2P aggregators, to name a few – represents an unnecessary step backwards. Those who take the risk should keep the gain

Telegraph Hub: Eleven Top Trends In Managing Your Money

Author

Angus Dent

Date

29th September 2016

ArchOver has teamed up with The Telegraph to produce a series of articles to help educate investors on the UK Peer-to-Peer Lending sector. In a brave new economic and financial world, understanding different ways of managing your money is key to success. Peer-to-Peer Lending can help both individuals and businesses navigate a post-Brexit world, with the reassurance that it is a secured and effective method of protecting and growing your money.

From chatbot banking to peer-to-peer lending, this year has seen some major shifts in the way people are taking care of their money.

Thanks to landmark events such as the Brexit vote and an interest rate cut, as well as the constant evolution of new technology, 2016 has already seen some major changes in how we manage our money. Here are 10 of the top trends.

Power to the people

The disintermediation revolution that swept through media and publishing has come to financial services. More people are taking control of their money and their investments, and, in a few years, we’ll look back on paying fund managers, independent financial advisers and the like as simply ludicrous. This of course, is a technology-based revolution – one led, incidentally, by a 300-plus-year-old institution, the Bank of England. “Where music and publishing have led, finance could follow,” Andy Haldane, the Bank of England’s chief economist, has said.

Smartphone money management

Apps for banking and paying continue to grow in popularity. Barclays mobile payment service Pingit hit its millionth business transaction in January this year. Furthermore, according to the Centre for Economic and Business Research, some 20 million adults will use their mobiles to pay for goods and services by the end of the decade, according to the Centre for Economic and Business Research. At the other end of the scale, traditional bank branches have continued to close – there have been 546 announced in this year alone.[1]

Peer-to-peer lending and crowdfunding

The launch of the Innovative Finance Isa, which allows some crowdfunding and P2P investments to be held in the tax-free wrapper, puts this form of investing firmly in the spotlight – although because of delays in processing authorisation applications by the FCA, it may take longer than originally anticipated before many crowdfunding and lending platforms are actually available as ISAs.

Add to this the cut in Bank Rate and it’s clear that more people may be considering this as a way of earning income from their savings. Always check the security provided and how liquid this security is; the best platforms are clear on this and provide security on highly liquid assets – although unlike putting money in the bank it is not risk-free, so you may want to seek advice.

Global investment

Post-Brexit, the UK stock market has become a less popular place to be. The latest figures from the Investment Association[2] show that £1bn came out of UK equity funds in July – whereas global funds saw an increase in sales, suggesting that investors are looking further afield for returns.

Premium bonds

Sometimes the old ones are the best. The Government’s National Savings & Investments (NS&I) hiked the maximum amount of premium bonds that savers can hold from £40,000 to £50,000 in June 2015.

The result? A £14bn increase in premium bond investments to £61.8bn in the 12 months to March. The average return on the bonds is just 1.25pc, but with rates for bank savings at record lows, many savers are hoping to get lucky.

Glistening gold

Uncertain times encourage many to buy gold, which is seen as the ultimate safe haven. Economic events including the Brexit vote saw gold investors nearly double their money in the first seven months of 2016.[3]

Biometric security[4]

Fed up remembering all of those passwords and PIN numbers? They’re already becoming a thing of the past as banks take a more personal approach. Barclays has become the first bank in the UK to use voice- recognition software to verify identity for telephone banking, with HSBC and First Direct expected to follow.

New bank Atom is also offering facial-recognition software for customers, with RBS and NatWest allowing customers to log in to their banking apps with fingerprints.

Fixed-income funds

With the Brexit vote leading to uncertainty over the future, many are turning to fixed-income funds over equities for perceived security. The Investment Association said that corporate bonds, strategic bonds and global bonds were three of the five most popular sectors in July.

Tax-efficient lodgers

Sites such as AirBnB, which allow you to rent out rooms or your home as part of the ‘sharing economy’, have continued to grow in popularity after an increase in the Rent a Room scheme from April allowed all taxpayers to rent out a room for up to £7,500 a year free of tax.

Chatbot banking

With Facebook Messenger opened up to third parties, many banks are already trialling chatbots across the world who will communicate with you through your messaging platform. By the end of the year you might be able to pay your friends and check your balance through a chatbot on Messenger.

Negative savings rates

Are you paying to bank on the high street? Perhaps not yet, but the 2016 interest rate cut to 0.25 per cent means many of us are no longer receiving any interest on our current accounts. With Royal Bank of Scotland already charging some business customers for holding cash on deposit, the spectre of us all paying to bank is perilously close.

[1] thisismoney.co.uk
[2]theinvestmentassociation.org
[3] ft.com
[4] telegraph.co.uk/personal-banking

Product or Service?

Author

Angus Dent

Date

29th July 2016

The CEO of the FCA, Andrew Bailey’s, comments to the House of Commons’ Treasury Committee when questioned by Chris Philp MP, have given rise to some comment and a very good open letter from Christine Farnish, Independent Chair of the Peer-to-Peer Finance Association. The discussion so far is one of detail. It seems to me that before we get to the detail we should consider the principles involved.

Usually banks, correctly in my opinion, describe what they provide as products. We as consumers buy a product, say a deposit account paying 0.5% interest pa. We have no idea what the bank does with the money, that’s not our concern; we have our 0.5% return. Which given the doctrine of ‘too big to fail’ is correctly almost the risk free rate of return……a few Italian readers may disagree. No further information is required.

On the other hand P2P lenders provide a service to their lenders (and borrowers). We bring the opportunity for lenders to earn a on their money than is available with a bank product. We should make it clear how much security the lender will have and leave it to the lender to make a judgement on whether or not the trade off between security and return suits them.

Of course this begs the question how much is sufficient service; another judgement call. Most of the platforms will, correctly in my view, provide credit analysis on the potential borrower. It is for the lender to assess whether the platform’s systems of credit analysis are sufficient for their purposes. The platforms must, and do, publish their systems of credit analysis. Too few, again my judgement, of the platforms provide a sufficient monitoring service after the loans have been made (perhaps this is driven by the upfront fee model, as Chris Philp suggests). The platforms should provide sufficient information on the potential borrower, or class of borrower, to allow the lender to make a judgement on whether to lend. To my knowledge all of the platforms work hard at this provision and are regularly increasing the amount and scope of the information provided. Regretfully, as with all markets, there will never be a perfect provision of information.

It is for the potential lender to judge whether the information provided is sufficient. If they don’t find it sufficient then they’ll leave their money with the banks product. The decision is always with the lender. After all it is the lenders capital that is at risk, this must always be made clear.

Accepting the principal that the banks provide a product and the P2P lenders a service is the first step in accepting that the P2P lenders need only a small amount of capital, when compared to a bank. The capital required by the P2P is sufficient to allow the P2P, in a calamitous financial position, to transfer information under its living will to another nominated party to monitor all loans facilitated to repayment. This is, of course, exactly what the FCA require of us.

24th Hour Failure (To finish first, first you have to finish)

Author

Angus Dent

Date

22nd June 201620th July 2016

This weekend saw a huge disappointment in the ’24 Hours of Le Mans’ race, leaving the Toyota team questioning what happened, to watch success slip away in the last 3 minutes of this gruelling challenge, was heart-breaking for those involved and the most fascinating viewing for the interested spectator and commentator.

Ultimately, it appears that one vital element led to the subsequent defeat, and handed the victory to the consistently tried and tested model of their competitors in the Porsche team. On what was the most important day in the calendar with glory a single lap away the failure of one part of the package turned the whole effort into embarrassment and widespread press coverage for all the wrong reasons.

Great story – but what does this have to do with the P2P space…..? A lot of common themes and messages can be taken from this story

Let’s look at the top teams on the starting grid in the race……they all had roughly the same size team behind them, with what at face value appeared to be the same skill set and knowledge. All of the cars looked pretty identical from the outside, bar the different splashes of colours identifying their team allegiance so why would one fail so spectacularly at the critical moment?

The answer lies under the bonnet – look at all the components, the chassis, the aero package, the engines etc. perhaps at a glance they look the same but they are not. It’s the whole package that must be fit for purpose, if 1% isn’t then abject failure will result. That elusive, in the case of Toyota, 1%, became the difference between success and failure, being lorded in the press or blasted for a simple error of judgement and engineering.

The alternative finance sector is seen by most on the outside as one identical group of organisations, all competing under their own branded team colours for the same purpose and all on the starting grid in identical vehicles. Lift the bonnet however and you’ll see huge differences that will optimise an organisation to success, or cause them to crash out of the sector in a blaze of (non) glory.

Unlike the image of the homogenised group of lenders, grouped together in the media and by less informed bystanders under the title ‘P2P’ there are actually numerous variations of platform, offering, expert teams and niche areas all operating in this field. Each has their own reason to believe they should be first across the line, many will stumble at the first hurdle due to lack of due diligence and not robust enough offerings or platforms. Some will look like they are in it for the win, only to fall foul to that elusive 1% of information, security or expertise and simply roll across the finish line in failure place (there’s no second or third) – to the delight of the watching crowd – who want to be entertained by stories of failure.

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