31-03-2020, 07:47 PM
I hope nobody missed the following announcement buried towards the bottom of a lengthy Coronavirus update from AC:
It's certainly all kicking off in the other place!
Quote:Whilst we continue to offer attractive target investment rates of return, we are also now having to introduce a small lender membership fee to cover increased loan servicing costs during this period and to ensure the long-term health of the platform.We are commencing a lender loan servicing fee of 0.9% per annum, which is 0.075% per month of the loans under management, starting on 1st May.
For a typical lender with £20,000 of loan investments the lender loan servicing fee would be £15 a month. We hope to reduce that in due course and will look to eliminate it again when times are better, but for now it is important. This is also expected to have little effect on Access Account interest payments for the time being, due to how they are funded. Borrowers needing support are also being asked to pay a similarly modest uplifted loan servicing fee during this period from their loan retention sum that we hold.
This fee is permitted in our terms and conditions, however we have never needed to implement it over the last seven years and we hope and expect it to be a short-term measure. It is also a fee that many other peer to peer platforms already charge even in normal market conditions, and our fee is lower than many of those in any case.
We wish to manage cash and reserves but also retain our strong team to ensure that we are ready for when the economy restarts as expected shortly.
It's certainly all kicking off in the other place!