Closing the 3 Year market

By Luke O’Mahony 2 Aug 2016

When RateSetter launched in 2010, investors could choose between the Rolling and the 3 Year market. Over time we added the 1 Year and 5 Year markets and made other adjustments so that our product range now broadly caters to three investment objectives:

  1. Rolling investment with no early withdrawal fees

  2. 1 Year investment (with early withdrawal fees)

  3. Longer term investment (with early withdrawal fees)

Closing the 3 Year market

Today, we are announcing our intention to close the 3 Year market. This will happen on 5 October 2016.

Why are you closing the 3 Year market?

The 3 Year market has become less popular ever since we introduced the 5 Year market and now accounts for less than 5 per cent of new investments. Both markets repay capital and interest monthly but investors vote with their wallets and are telling us that they prefer to lend in the 5 Year market.

In light of this, we think it is sensible to simplify our offering and have three markets. Investors who are happy investing over a longer term can invest in the 5 Year market; those that prefer to invest for shorter periods or prefer to have cheaper access can invest in the 1 Year or Rolling markets.

What does this mean for investors?

From 7 September, the option to set up a regular payment or a recurring reinvestment into the 3 Year market will be removed.

Reinvestments and regular payments into the 3 Year market set up before this date will continue to work as normal until 5 October 2016, when the 3 Year market fully closes to new investment.

What if I have money in the 3 Year market?

If you have existing investments in the 3 Year market, you will continue to earn the same rate of interest on that money as your lending is repaid.

From 5 October 2016, any borrower repayments which are set to reinvest into the 3 Year market will be paid into your Holding Account by default, so that you can choose how to invest them.

If you would like to keep earning interest on that money, you can of course set repayments to be automatically invested in the Rolling, 1 Year or 5 Year markets by logging in to your RateSetter account and then selecting “Reinvestment” on the left hand menu.

Questions?

We hope this is a clear update. If you have any questions, please email us at [email protected] or call us on 020 3142 6226.