Zopa’s Credit Checking
I’ve just received my financial statement for the tax year ended on the 5th April 2011 from Zopa.
The interesting line says that the capital written off this year due to bad debts was nothing. Incidentally, I’ve only had three contracts go bad in 2,500, that have been written and they have cost me just over £300 out of over £50,000 invested.
So on those figures, I think I can say that Zopa checks on who they accept for loans are very good.
Perhaps if some banks had been as careful we wouldn’t have had a banking crisis!
Royal Bank of UK Taxpayers Is Still a Money Pit
Reports this morning show that we are still propping up this memorial to the stupidity of the so-called banker, Fred Goodwin.
There will come a time, when we sell or even give it to the highest bidder, as that will be the best financial course for the country as a whole.
Bank Holiday Effects On Zopa
My repayments from Zopa over the last week or so have been rather erratic, with a lot of payments failing from otherwise good borrowers, quite a few loans being cancelled and other non-normal occurrences. I also didn’t have any repayments for several days, probably because the banking system was virtually shut down. I don’t think there is anything to worry about as the system seems to be levelling out to normal behaviour. Today for instance, I had the highest daily level of repayments ever.
Football Shirt Sponsorship
Years ago, many of the top football clubs had shirts that were sponsored by drinks companies.
I’m just watching Manchester United and Everton on the television. United are sponsored by Aon, who are an insurance company, although they are a lot more than that! Everton on the other hand are sponsored by Chang, which is a beer company. To me, a brewer is someone who makes real ale, and I doubt that the Thai company who makes it observe the same principles as say Adnams or the Germans. I don’t think that you would call Chang a significant player in the UK drinks market. It’s certainly something that I as a coeliac couldn’t drink safely. The tie-up between Everton and Chang also has some interesting links to post-tsunami projects, so it could be seen as being benficial to both partners. It certainly doesn’t promote excessive drinking.
So are any other clubs in the English Premier League sponored by drinks companies. Carlsberg used to sponasor Liverpool and in fact the Premier League, but I don’t think they do anymore. Obviously, advertising at football in England doesn’t make sense to them now.
So who sponsor the shirts of the other teams? The complete list is here.
- Arsenal – Emirates – airline
- Aston Villa – FxPro – financial trading
- Birmingham – F & C Investments – finance
- Blackburn Rovers – Crown Paints – paint
- Blackpool – Wonga – finance
- Bolton – 188Bet – gambling
- Chelsea – Samsung – electronics
- Everton – Chang – alcoholic beverages
- Fulham – FxPro – financial trading
- Liverpool – Standard Chartered – finance
- Manchester City – Etihad – airline
- Manchester United – AON – finance
- Newcastle United – Northern Rock – finance
- Stoke City – Britannia Building Society – finance
- Sunderland – Tombola – gambling
- Tottenham Hotspur – Autonomy – technology and Investec – finance
- West Bromwich Albion – Homeserve – emergency repair experts
- West Ham – SBOBET – gambling
- Wigan Athletic – 188Bet – gambling
- Wolverhampton Wanderers – Sportingbet – gambling
If you look at many of these companies, it is unlikely I would ever deal with them. Perhaps the only ones I might use are the airlines and perhaps one or two of the finance companies. As to the betting companies, I wouldn’t use any as if I have a bet it’s on Betfair. But the only company, which anyone could possibly have any serious objection to is Wonga, which is a very high interest rate lender, that I would never touch with a bargepole. Unless of course, they were to pay me serious money for consultancy, which is unlikely.
With the exception of Everton and their deal with Chang, there are no sponsorships from alcoholic beverage companies. I think this is a good thing.
Surely though, the sponsorship of Stoke City by the Britannia Building Society is the most interesting, in that no-one can have objection to a well-run building society can they? Especially, as it is one of the longest running deals in English football.
When it comes to the nPower Championship, I can’t remember seeing a drinks company on a shirt this season.
So what about the Scottish Premier League
- Aberdeen – Team Recruitment – recruitment
- Celtic – Tennents – alcoholic beverages
- Dundee United – Calor – energy
- Hamilto – Reid Furniture – furniture
- Hearts – UKIO – finance
- Hibernian – Crabbie’s – alcoholic beverages
- Inverness – Orion Group – recruitment
- Kilmarknock – Verve – motor dealer
- Motherwell – Commsworld – communications
- Rangers – Tennetts – alcoholic beverages
- St. Johnstone – Taylor Wimpey – house builder
- St. Mirren – Carbrini – sportswear
One or two of these might have changed, but two stand out. Both Glasgow teams are sponsored by the same alcohol company.
Surely with their history of alcohol-fuelled violence at the matches and domestic violence afterwards, this is a very good idea.
Especially, as alcohol can’t be advertised on television and all Old Firm matches are televised.
In fact, I would support a total ban of the shirt sponsorship by alcohol companies throughout Europe.
Now Brown Wants to Bankrupt the World
It has been reported that Prudence wants to be head of the IMF. Talk about putting an alcoholic in charge of a brewery!
At least David Cameron appears to be trying to block the move according to this report.
Should It Still Be Called The Royal Bank of Scotland?
We walked past this building on the waterside at Bristol.
Royal Bank of UK Taxpayers
It occurred to us, that surely now is the time to drop the word Scotland from the name. After all, it is now the Royal Bank of UK Taxpayers.
Perhaps we should all be given a few shares!
Changing Repayment Dates on Loans
I’ve mentioned this before with respect to Zopa.
I just wondered how many of the loans that changed payment dates had a rather chequered history, so I went through all of my loans, where the payment date had changed.
Of the 16 loans that had changed the date, only one was late and the amount owing on that one was just a few pence. Interestingly some were a bit chequered until the date changed, but immaculate afterwards.
So it looks like this feature is good for both borrowers and lenders.
MPs Want to Keep Cheques
Reports are appearing that MPs want to stop banks scrapping cheques.
I did write one a few weeks ago and it took three weeks to clear into my account. So why does anybody bother writing them, except to stretch their cash flow.
I also had three panes of double glazing replaced. I did the transfer before the glazier left. That way, if they don’t get the payment it’s not my fault.
On Line Banking Security
When I was in Greece, I increased my overdraft limit by logging in to my account over the Internet from an Internet cafe. The procedure at Nationwide is simple and relies on memorising three numbers or codes. One is ten digits long, but written down it looks like a US telephone number. So it is stored in my trusty Nokia 6310i, as a phone number complete with the US country code. As I have about a hundred numbers in my phone and fifty are in the US, it would be pretty difficult to find it, especially as I’m lying and you don’t have the other code words. But it does mean, I don’t have to take an obvious machine with me to see how my bank account is doing. I hope they don’t change the system and insist on using the machine to login, as this would be a less secure system. After all, I usually keep my debit card hidden when I’m abroad and only take it out when I need cash from a cashpoint.
I access other systems all the time like American Express and Zopa, but in all these cases, the only thing I need to remember is several code words. Nothing is ever written down.
The security system, I don’t like is that for the John Lewis Partnership Card. If you don’t login for sixty days, you need to ask for a new password and that comes in a secure package that I have difficulty opening with my gammy left hand.
If I didn’t shop at Waitrose, I’d cut the card up.
Security though is not just about logging in, it’s about what information you can glean from your on-line statements. The Partnership card just gives minimal information, but Nationwide gives quite a bit more. Zopa incidentally, is very comprehensive about what it tells you about each transaction. In my view you can never give too much information. How long before cashpoint machines take your picture, when you draw money out? I’ve always believed that you can upload a picture against your credit or bank card, so that if there was thought to be a problem, it could be checked. There are lots of possibilities.
And how about an alarm pin number? Suppose you are being forced to use a cashpoint, by someone with a knife! If you typed in the alarm number, the following would happen.
- The cashpoint would appear to have accepted the correct pin.
- A small amount of money say something like £20 would be dispensed with a message that said you were now overdrawn and that was your lot.
- The card would be retained and of course blocked.
- Nothing would be done to indicate the transaction was anything other than normal.
Responsible Lending
If I walk up the Kingsland Road in Dalston, the road is crawling with money shops, pay day loan companies.pawnbrokers and all of the other dodgy lenders that proliferate these days.
So when someone who works in finance, said there was a thing called The Lending Code, I thought I’d take a look.
It is the sort of worthy document produced by regulators and the like that is manna from heaven to all those dodgy lenders down the Kingsland Road and others who shark loans with large amounts of advertising, sponsorships of Premiership football teams and sometimes with door-to-door salesmen with big boots.
I always remember a story told by a respectable finance guy, who said that when the government restricted the length of time you could take out a loan for and if it was for something like a car, then you could only lend a percentage, it was a licence for finance companies to literally print money. If everybody sticks to the Lending Code, then the costs to borrowers will go up, banks will make higher profits and many will be effectively removed from the list of borrowers. A lot will remove themselves because they won’t be bothered to read the paperwork.
When I was in Greece, I thought I might stay a bit longer and in that case, I would have needed more cash, as Greece is very much a cash society. So I used the Internet to login to my Nationwide account and increase the overdraft. In the end, I came home and haven’t used the limit. But would the Lending Code with all its provisions on overdrafts make such a simple transaction more difficult?
What is really needed is a plain English Lending Code. When I was at ICI, we used to write and distribute flyers about the jobs we did with our computer. They were successful in getting new business and this was because they were read. And why were they read? Because they were a single sheet of A4 paper.
So The Lending Code as implimented by a bank say, should be a series of web or A4 pages related to each area of lending. If it can’t fit on one sheet, then The Lending Code is wrong.
Only in that way could we have a code that could be understood by the man or woman on the Dalston Omnibus! These are the people we need to protect from the lenders. Not those like me that sit in the middle of the lending market and only use it, when they have a well-thought out need.
I like Zopa and I’ve met a few of their borrowers, who seem very happy with the way Zopa does business. In a way, you can almost class Zopa as a group of people coming together to lend money to others. Isn’t that supposed to be what building societies and credit unions were and are about?
In a way though, Zopa, although it is unregulated by the FSA, acts like a mainstream lender, in that it does proper identity and credit checks and gets tough with those that default on their payments. I think, that it might be unique in that it allows borrowers to chsnge their payment day or repay the loan early without penalties, when perhaps their cicumstances change. Both these features, should be in The Lending Code. I can’t even find the word early in The Lending Code.
So yet again the bureaucrats are creating work for themselves in trying to protect the unprotectable.
The Anonymous Widower 