Did I get my timing right??

[Skint4achange]

So, after weighing up the pro's and cons I decided to withdraw my funds from my ISA (Via a transfer) and also my personal account.  I noticed the day after I had done this, there is now only about 20% of the lender offers that there was before (Now about £1M, when I sold out there was around £5M).

My biggest fear was that when the funds run out in the 1 and 5 year markets, I would be unable to sell out if needed.  Now it may be that they would buy out my 1 and 5 year contracts at lower rates using the new type of accounts, Access, plus and max, or as I like to call them, less interest for you, even less interest for you and much less interest for you, but I do not want to be in the position where I have a lot of 1 year contracts @5.5%+ and 5 year contracts @6.5%+ and unable to liquidate them through lack of available funds in the 1 and 5 year markets.

I enjoyed RS for the diversity and te thrill of trying to "Outsmart" the system and get a good rate (Even if it was repaid early in most cases!) but I no longer trust RS with all their twists and turns.

[dualinvestor]

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I enjoyed RS for the diversity and te thrill of trying to "Outsmart" the system and get a good rate (Even if it was repaid early in most cases!) but I no longer trust RS with all their twists and turns.

Agree with more or less everything you say but as for how the system will work for SM purchases your final statement says it all, if it works against RS they change it to suit themselves. 

Their problem is in the bright new world of Fintech the backers expect immediate, large, profits not to be hanging around 10 years later having to put more money in.  Despite achieving a fair share the personal p2p pool it has not lived up to expectations and the penetration of the personal finance market is miniscule at less than 1%, therefore it and Zopa have not produced the returns expected from them.  To counter this they constantly tinker but whether the right way to do it is to reduce investor return whilst they need to increase the scale of their business only time will tell.

[Skint4achange]

Well, I am almost out of P2P with the exception of the inevitable defaults stuck in 3 platforms.

I only have a very small amount in RS now which is drawing down as it is repaid.  The only other platform I now use is UB but there are some warning signs creeping in there too.

A murky old world this P2P if you ask me!! 

[dualinvestor]

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A murky old world this P2P if you ask me!! 

Problem with P2P is, like many things, the principle is good, the practise is very bad.

It was originally introduced to the UK in the last decade by Zopa as a genuine attempt to put retail lenders and retail borrowers together but them as a middle man, rather than a bank, to take a small cut.  They never got, and still don't have, the volume to make a great deal of money from it and were severely hampered by the financial crisis of 2008.  Ratesetter came along in the early part of this decade, stole some of their market so diluted the money making pooitential, but both combined they probably still don't do the volume of a single large branch of a traditional High Street bank, certainly only a tiny proportion the volume of the internet operations of the aforesaid banks.

At about the same time as RS  FC came along and although tarnished they did manage a flotation so might be considered a success for their backers.  However they introduced the concept of individuals lending to businesses.

At the time anyone could set up a P2P platform with £35 for a consumer credit licence and access to the necessary computer and internet skills.  Some with laughingly, almost hysterically, small share capitals and few credit underwriting skills, as many have found to their cost with Lendy.

This exposed the retail lender/investor to loans hat they had no expertise in understanding and borrowers who had rarely, if ever, completed a successful project.

As you say "A murky old world this P2P"