Quantcast
Menu
Save, make, understand money

Experienced Investor

Ratesetter ‘technical issues’ lead to payment delays

Emma Lunn
Written By:
Emma Lunn
Posted:
Updated:
08/04/2021

Thousands of peer-to-peer investors who have had their accounts closed by Ratesetter have been left waiting for their money after technical issues delayed payments over the Bank Holiday weekend.

Ratesetter announced last month that it was closing its investor accounts. It told investors that accounts would be shut down on 2 April 2021, with investors’ money returned to their holding accounts from this date. Holding accounts do not pay interest but once the cash was in the holding account, it could be withdrawn.

But withdrawals have been delayed, causing anger amongst investors. Withdrawal requests normally reach customers’ bank accounts by 6pm the next working day. But some Ratesetter investors who requested cash over the Bank Holiday weekend still hadn’t had their money back on Thursday morning.

Many took to Twitter to express their frustration.

One Tweet yesterday said: “I withdrew my money on Sunday. Still waiting for it to appear in bank a/c. Showing on your system as withdrawn but where is it? Why can’t I access my bank account details to check?”

Another customer Tweeted: “@RateSetter very worried about where my money is. What is the delay and when will my money appear in my bank account? This blaming others makes me very suspicious.”

A RateSetter spokesperson said: “We apologise to our investors for the delay which was caused by a technical issue with our payments processing provider. We are very pleased to say that this has been fixed and the payments are being processed and delivered.”

The delay has been an unfortunate end to the peer-to-peer lender’s investor accounts. An increase in withdrawal requests in March 2020, at the onset of the pandemic, saw thousands of investors face a wait of nine months or more for their cash.

To add insult to injury, since 4 May 2020, investors have only been receiving 50% of the normal interest on their accounts, with the other 50% going to Ratesetter’s Provision Fund.