Cash Machines Behind Barriers
By now, I’d determined that I needed to get a taxi to my hotel and as luck would have it not only was my phone out of juice, but so was my wallet.
So as I needed money for the taxi, I needed a cash machine and where are both of these found? In a station! But as the picture shows the only ones I could find were behind the ticket barriers.
Cash Machines Behind Barriers
Luckily, I was let through and got the money for the taxi. As it was the driver didn’t take credit cards, so I definitely needed that cash.
Zopa Breaks The Million Pound Barrier
In the last seven days, if you ignore Saturday and Sunday, when they don’t normally distribute loans, they have lent out 5.7 million pounds, which works out at over a million pounds every working day.
Can this steady level of high lending be in part due to the troubles at the Co-operative Bank?
If we believe the stance of the Co-op, their typical customer will be an ethical person, who probably thinks seriously about their money. They will probably think, that bankers are responsible for a lot of problems. I won’t say anything about their politics as being sensible with and thinking about money, is not the preserve of any political leaning. I’m even sure that some people who might support some extreme parties, may well have some of the best structured finances in the country.
But with the Co-op banks troubles, are these thinking people deserting the bank before it is too late and for their saving and borrowing, they are going to the peer-to-peer lenders like Zopa.
Certainly, if I look at my lending on Zopa, the rate of late payments and new bad debts seems to have fallen compared to a year ago. This could be put down to better checking on the company’s part, but is it also due to the fact that those that think about their money are moving away from the banks.
So are the peer-to-peer lenders contributing to the demise of the Co-operative Bank?
Payday Lenders Fight Back
Payday lenders have had a lot of bad publicity today. So Oakam in Dalston decided to fight back.
Payday Lenders Fight Back
I suppose the only guy doing well is the guy on stilts.
Perhaps we need more street performers on the High Street.
Dalston On BBC Breakfast
Dalston featured in a report on BBC Breakfast this morning.
It was all about payday loans.
It is almost impossible to walk down the Kingsland Road without falling over the endless number of boards offering loans on the street.
All loans no matter where they are from, should be properly registered on a central database, which is then checked for anomalies and excessive borrowings.
The FCA is imposing new regulations as reported here on the BBC.
But no matter what regulations are tabled, it will not stop people borrowing at rates, they can’t afford. So the new regulations will probably turn out to be a business opportunity for loan sharks.
A New Excuse!
This morning I received a bill, that I had been expecting, so I paid it immediately.
I sent the company, an e-mail saying that the transfer was in cyberspace!
Is that a new version of the cheque is in the post?
Zopa Approach A Million A Day
I keep detailed figures about Zopa’s lending and not just the amount of money I have invested in the peer-to-peer lender.
Over the last few days, the amount of money they have lent daily is now approaching a million pounds.
Perhaps a better figure is to look at the lending over a week and even that figure is around £600,000 a day.
That is a lot of money, for a business that didn’t exist eight years ago.
An Investigation Into The Stability Of Peer-To-Peer Lending Systems
For some time, I’ve thought that peer-to-peer lending systems, and Zopa which I know best, in particular, are a very interesting proposition mathematically. I did muse on this question some time ago in Stability in Financial Systems.
My education is at Liverpool University, where I got a B. Eng degree in Electronics in 1968. I had specialised in Control Engineering and my undergraduate thesis was all about mathematical modelling.
Most of my career since has been about large business, monetary and planning computing.
But one thing that must be born in mind, is that after I sold Metier in 1985, I formed a finance company in partnership with a friend. We still talk so it must be a good relationship.
In the years I had a stake in that company, I modelled the cash flows for obvious reasons of watching risk, just as I do with my funds invested in Zopa now.
The company taught me a lot about the finance industry and it was partly for that reason, that I invested my savings in Zopa nearly six years ago. And I’ve not regretted it one bit!
As I said in Stability in Financial Systems last year, I have a feeling that Zopa is a stable system. I also think they have used this stability to their own advantage, to create their Safeguard offers.
Obviously, a full investigation would be of value to see how, if Zopa my proposition concerning the system is correct.
You would just right down the various cash flows and see how the various scenarios will affect the company.
Poor Computer System Design
I just tried to make a payment through my on-line bank account. As the payee has moved their account since last time, I needed to change the sort code and account umber. But you have to delete the old entry and re-enter a new one, as there is no other way.
I finally did the transfer, but even then, there were quite a few textual bugs in the screens I saw.
This is very poor system design and is another entry in that fat book called How Not To Design A Banking System.
My Bank Has Sent Me A New Cheque Book
In the last three years, I think I’ve written two cheques and I’ve received even less than that!
So why does my bank waste money sending me a new cheque book?
After all, if it had gone missing in the post, as one or two other letters have in the past year, and had got in the hands of fraudsters, the bank would have had a big mess to sort out.
I just logged in to my bank account to see how many cheques I written in the last three years. It wouldn’t tell me, as the start date was too far in the past.
Useless!
But even then the two cheques I could find, were totally anonymous and could only be identified by going to paper accounts. Wwhich in this computerised age, I don’t have.
Totally useless!
Cheques should only be people with heritage, genes or birthplace from a country in Central Europe.
I’m very tempted to take the new cheque book and leave it on a park bench and see what happens! I would of course send a letter to my bank, saying that I don’t do cheques and would they please bounce any that are attempted to be cashed. And of course to stop wasting money by sending me new cheque books.
An Offer I Can Refuse
This morning, when I logged into my bank account, they were saying they had some special offers tailored specially for me.
Am I alone in refusing any offer from a bank? Except of course, things that are free improvements to their current service.
What they were offering me, I don’t know, as I’m so cynical about banks, I didn’t bother to read the offers.
The Anonymous Widower 