Harmoney

[Art]

That's true but as I only need C and D loans at the moment, my filter was set to invest in those. I'm happy doing everything manually again and the one loan with 7 enquiries won't be too much of an impact.

I've had autolend running for 2 1/2 weeks now and 107 loans invested using it. It has been As and Bs that I have been needing to get my spread close to target and so I have had my criteria set fairly tightly. There may be a few loans I would not have chosen myself but generally I am very happy with the autolend. It certainly saves a lot of my time - particularly since I strongly believe in having the widest spread possible. The higher risk loans I am still choosing manually. I would like to see a few more filters on the autolend, the main one being ratio of loan instalment to income - at the moment I generally get around this by having the max loan value at $25,000 so in most cases the instalment is not too high compared to income. It would also be good if we could have two or more different filters active for autolend at any one time.

[BJ1]

Good morning. I have spent the past day reading the last 70 pages of this thread. Common themes are concerns over the fees charged by Harmoney and the things investors would like to be added to available options. From time to time there are grizzles and sometimes Harmoney people have suggested those be taken offline for resolution. I've been with Harmoney since January 2015 and have attached a screendump of my current position. I have 111 loans currently invested and as you will see my total arrears at present is $76 with no charge offs so far. I cherry pick my investments based on 40 years lending experience.

The reason I am writing on this forum is because I am displeased with the responses from Harmoney when I raise issues with them. To date these issues have related to platform failures (from my perspective). I do not accept that it is appropriate for a professional tech platform to have timing differences so that investors see conflicting information on different parts of the platform - when I am told my total arrears are $76 I expect to be able to see the composition of that total in individual loans but on occasions there has been a difference that has lasted for days, not minutes or hours. I do not expect to have funds withdrawn from my account for an investment which has been confirmed but cancelled and to have that money missing for over 10 days. I do expect that when I raise such issues and receive commitments to respond with answers, that I will receive such responses.

Such matters make me wonder how I will feel when I am informed of my first write off. Will I feel comfortable with Harmoney's recovery process? How will I know that reasonable recovery action has occurred? Is the recovery process actually clearly understood by investors?

Frankly, while I understand the risk / reward scenario very well, the part of the risk I don't understand is how Harmony considers that its platform is professional and competent when it produces what is clearly false information from time to time (just look at some of the stated incomes on loans), appears not to have adequate checks in place (people being offered loans when not all parts of the process have been completed - per comments earlier in this thread and my own experience). But, while I can filter out such loans based on experience many investors obviously aren't doing so and those with automatic investment mechanisms (which include the major players such as Heartland) have no hope of doing so. It is all very well for Harmoney to talk about expected results net of defaults but when defaults are produced because of a lack of thorough checks of basic information then Harmoney itself is at risk of legal action. Any business running a $300million loan portfolio is expected to be professional and competent. In my mind Harmoney doesn't meet those criteria.

So, how many agree? Should there be a clear process for debt recovery (as that really is the business end of the risk)? Can investors be certain that recovery action meets industry standards? Are investors at risk as has been suggested earlier in this forum, of a blasé attitude to recovery because the net of default return is well above alternative options?

Attachment 8431

[humvee]

Good morning. I have spent the past day reading the last 70 pages of this thread. Common themes are concerns over the fees charged by Harmoney and the things investors would like to be added to available options. From time to time there are grizzles and sometimes Harmoney people have suggested those be taken offline for resolution. I've been with Harmoney since January 2015 and have attached a screendump of my current position. I have 111 loans currently invested and as you will see my total arrears at present is $76 with no charge offs so far. I cherry pick my investments based on 40 years lending experience.

The reason I am writing on this forum is because I am displeased with the responses from Harmoney when I raise issues with them. To date these issues have related to platform failures (from my perspective). I do not accept that it is appropriate for a professional tech platform to have timing differences so that investors see conflicting information on different parts of the platform - when I am told my total arrears are $76 I expect to be able to see the composition of that total in individual loans but on occasions there has been a difference that has lasted for days, not minutes or hours. I do not expect to have funds withdrawn from my account for an investment which has been confirmed but cancelled and to have that money missing for over 10 days. I do expect that when I raise such issues and receive commitments to respond with answers, that I will receive such responses.

Such matters make me wonder how I will feel when I am informed of my first write off. Will I feel comfortable with Harmoney's recovery process? How will I know that reasonable recovery action has occurred? Is the recovery process actually clearly understood by investors?

Frankly, while I understand the risk / reward scenario very well, the part of the risk I don't understand is how Harmony considers that its platform is professional and competent when it produces what is clearly false information from time to time (just look at some of the stated incomes on loans), appears not to have adequate checks in place (people being offered loans when not all parts of the process have been completed - per comments earlier in this thread and my own experience). But, while I can filter out such loans based on experience many investors obviously aren't doing so and those with automatic investment mechanisms (which include the major players such as Heartland) have no hope of doing so. It is all very well for Harmoney to talk about expected results net of defaults but when defaults are produced because of a lack of thorough checks of basic information then Harmoney itself is at risk of legal action. Any business running a $300million loan portfolio is expected to be professional and competent. In my mind Harmoney doesn't meet those criteria.

So, how many agree? Should there be a clear process for debt recovery (as that really is the business end of the risk)? Can investors be certain that recovery action meets industry standards? Are investors at risk as has been suggested earlier in this forum, of a blasé attitude to recovery because the net of default return is well above alternative options?

Attachment 8431

You have done well to have no charge off's over a portfolio that size over that time period, I do have a different risk curve to you and a higher RAR, But I also have MASSIVELY higher charge off's too, in $ terms my portfolio is smaller then yours (I'm not on harmoneys lowest fee band yet)

To date they have recovered $47.30 of charged off loans (over half came from a single charged off loan that was repaid in full)

If you only have 111 loans for that size portfolio you must invest a lot more per loan than me, Most loans i only invest 1 note($25) a small number I get 2 notes, and on rear almost non-existant occasions I get 3 notes in a loan
My active loans using a correctly configured filter is 1922 (harmoneys incorrect filter shows only 1909 as they exclude hardship, protect waiver, and protect waived)

Oct2016Rar.JPG

[BJ1]

On a purely unemotional basis the only determinant to a good strategy is the final return net of all costs. On that basis to date you are way ahead of me, provided that Harmoney is accurately calculating RAR after write-offs. Have you independently checked your RAR? When Harmoney uses a formula that results in a negative 140% return I have some doubts about their information and systems - I have checked accuracy and am happy they are getting it right for positive return situations but where there is a negative involved they should not be applying the same formula as it produces rubbish (like 140% loss - which I have pointed out and all I get back is that that is the result the formula provides - no acknowledgement that the formula is wrong -another reason for me to doubt their competency). I have an aversion to the F grade loans and am very selective about C-E. Now that autolend is available I have created a C-E filter which meets my needs and will see how it goes - on a risk basis with the volume I have making each loan $100 is fine by me - in fact I'd like a higher minimum as to date I have taken positions in E1-E4 of between $300 and $500 each

[humvee]

On a purely unemotional basis the only determinant to a good strategy is the final return net of all costs. On that basis to date you are way ahead of me, provided that Harmoney is accurately calculating RAR after write-offs. Have you independently checked your RAR? When Harmoney uses a formula that results in a negative 140% return I have some doubts about their information and systems - I have checked accuracy and am happy they are getting it right for positive return situations but where there is a negative involved they should not be applying the same formula as it produces rubbish (like 140% loss - which I have pointed out and all I get back is that that is the result the formula provides - no acknowledgement that the formula is wrong -another reason for me to doubt their competency). I have an aversion to the F grade loans and am very selective about C-E. Now that autolend is available I have created a C-E filter which meets my needs and will see how it goes - on a risk basis with the volume I have making each loan $100 is fine by me - in fact I'd like a higher minimum as to date I have taken positions in E1-E4 of between $300 and $500 each

-140% return per annum is fairly easy to get you just need to lose 70% of your money in 6 months

I have not checked the RAR's figures myself for 4 or 5 months - When I was checking them I always got withing +/-1% of harmoneys number for RAR - but never got within 0.2% of their number.

[BJ1]

Any formula which reports a loss greater than 100% is incorrect. If after six months an investor has only 30% of the original investment left then the loss is 70%. Losses should not be annualised. Only investment returns should be annualised to provide an accurate representation of the return achieved over time. If losses were to be annualised then the 140% figure Harmoney shows would be trending down to 100% over one year, but it has shown in the RAR statistics at 140% from the day it appeared and now it is showing as 140% 440 days after the first investment. All Harmoney need to do is look at the core data and they will see the problem, if they have the mathematical background to do so.

All of the negative positions on the RAR graphs will be incorrectly calculated.

[Cool Bear]

Good morning. I have spent the past day reading the last 70 pages of this thread. Common themes are concerns over the fees charged by Harmoney and the things investors would like to be added to available options. From time to time there are grizzles and sometimes Harmoney people have suggested those be taken offline for resolution. I've been with Harmoney since January 2015 and have attached a screendump of my current position. I have 111 loans currently invested and as you will see my total arrears at present is $76 with no charge offs so far. I cherry pick my investments based on 40 years lending experience.

The reason I am writing on this forum is because I am displeased with the responses from Harmoney when I raise issues with them. To date these issues have related to platform failures (from my perspective). I do not accept that it is appropriate for a professional tech platform to have timing differences so that investors see conflicting information on different parts of the platform - when I am told my total arrears are $76 I expect to be able to see the composition of that total in individual loans but on occasions there has been a difference that has lasted for days, not minutes or hours. I do not expect to have funds withdrawn from my account for an investment which has been confirmed but cancelled and to have that money missing for over 10 days. I do expect that when I raise such issues and receive commitments to respond with answers, that I will receive such responses.

Such matters make me wonder how I will feel when I am informed of my first write off. Will I feel comfortable with Harmoney's recovery process? How will I know that reasonable recovery action has occurred? Is the recovery process actually clearly understood by investors?

Frankly, while I understand the risk / reward scenario very well, the part of the risk I don't understand is how Harmony considers that its platform is professional and competent when it produces what is clearly false information from time to time (just look at some of the stated incomes on loans), appears not to have adequate checks in place (people being offered loans when not all parts of the process have been completed - per comments earlier in this thread and my own experience). But, while I can filter out such loans based on experience many investors obviously aren't doing so and those with automatic investment mechanisms (which include the major players such as Heartland) have no hope of doing so. It is all very well for Harmoney to talk about expected results net of defaults but when defaults are produced because of a lack of thorough checks of basic information then Harmoney itself is at risk of legal action. Any business running a $300million loan portfolio is expected to be professional and competent. In my mind Harmoney doesn't meet those criteria.

So, how many agree? Should there be a clear process for debt recovery (as that really is the business end of the risk)? Can investors be certain that recovery action meets industry standards? Are investors at risk as has been suggested earlier in this forum, of a blasé attitude to recovery because the net of default return is well above alternative options?

Attachment 8431

Hi BJ1 and Humvee,

Like the two of you, I have a significant amount invested in Harmoney. My writeoffs are at least twice Humvee's in value (but less in numbers? now over 60). My RAR at 20 Oct is just about 14%. I am comfortable with the performance so far but of course, I am always trying to improve it.

My opinion of Harmoney is that their product is a good one and they comes up with great improvements every now and then. But their communication of it to the Lenders is atrocious (and I am being kind here). An example is the Payment Protect. It seems to be good for Lenders but they muddle up the presentation at the beginning. It was so confusing that hardly anyone in this forum understand it. They finally comes up with clearer examples after the hue and cry in this forum and I am sure many emails and phone calls from investors like us with a bit of money in it. Some of the personnel there do not seem to fully understand their products and the way the website or reports work.

So, my conclusion is that generally the product is good, so is the website, reports etc. But really poor communication and understanding of it by the people that are charged with communication with us retail investors.

[BJ1]

Cool Bear, I think your conclusion is fair. I do add that I also think the people are inexpert which is why they can't explain things well. Also the profitability problem limits development in the areas where the problems persist. None of that is preventing my continuing to increase my cash input month by month. I intend to create another portfolio for autolend investing and will be asking Harmoney to increase the maximum from 4 notes to at least 10. After all, it is up to individuals to manage their risk and we shouldn't forget that in the first year Harmoney warned of excess risk only when an intended investment exceeded 10% of a loan - which was a meaningless measure anyway. Anyone with a balanced portfolio of $50,000 or so should be quite comfortable with individual exposures up to $250. I wonder if Monica or Will will read this.

[nztyke]

Cool Bear, I think your conclusion is fair. I do add that I also think the people are inexpert which is why they can't explain things well. Also the profitability problem limits development in the areas where the problems persist. None of that is preventing my continuing to increase my cash input month by month. I intend to create another portfolio for autolend investing and will be asking Harmoney to increase the maximum from 4 notes to at least 10. After all, it is up to individuals to manage their risk and we shouldn't forget that in the first year Harmoney warned of excess risk only when an intended investment exceeded 10% of a loan - which was a meaningless measure anyway. Anyone with a balanced portfolio of $50,000 or so should be quite comfortable with individual exposures up to $250. I wonder if Monica or Will will read this.

Yes I agree, a more more comprehensive filter would suit me; I prefer as a rule of thumb to invest $300 in A, $200 in B and $100 in C. I would also like the ability t o invest auto loans in both 60 and 36 month terms instead of one or the other.

[RMJH]

Cool Bear, I think your conclusion is fair. I do add that I also think the people are inexpert which is why they can't explain things well. Also the profitability problem limits development in the areas where the problems persist. None of that is preventing my continuing to increase my cash input month by month. I intend to create another portfolio for autolend investing and will be asking Harmoney to increase the maximum from 4 notes to at least 10. After all, it is up to individuals to manage their risk and we shouldn't forget that in the first year Harmoney warned of excess risk only when an intended investment exceeded 10% of a loan - which was a meaningless measure anyway. Anyone with a balanced portfolio of $50,000 or so should be quite comfortable with individual exposures up to $250. I wonder if Monica or Will will read this.

200 loans spread over five grades is pretty low imo. I would want that in each grade, at least, with more in the riskier grades. BTW RAR means realised annual return so quite possible to get over 100% loss. I think you miss the point that it is the whole data set that paints the picture , not just the odd (explicable) outlier.