Linked Finance tops €150m milestone in peer-to-peer lending
Linked Finance, Ireland’s leading peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform, has reached the milestone of issuing over €150m in loans to Irish SMEs. The milestone was passed as the company issued €9.6m in loans in the first quarter of 2021, up 4% on the first three months of 2020.
At the beginning of January, Linked Finance became the first non-bank lender to offer loans through the government’s flagship Covid-19 Credit Guarantee Scheme (CCGS). Linked Finance has already funded over €7m worth of loans to SME customers, underlining the success of alternative lenders participating in the scheme.
In Linked Finance’s key target segments of business services, retail and IT & communications, demand for finance in Q1 2021 has increased, on average, by over a third compared with the same time last year.
The CCGS is designed to offer low cost working capital and capital expenditure loans for businesses affected by Covid-19. Linked Finance can offer borrowers decisions on loans of up to €250,000 in under 24 hours from receiving their documents.
Linked Finance has now provided over 2,700 loans to ambitious local businesses in every county of the country, and hitting the €150m milestone in loans since its launch in 2013 indicates how mainstream P2P lending has become, and is now an attractive alternative to traditional sources of finance.
Linked Finance’s major highlights for Q1 were:
- 4% YoY increase in lending in Q1 to €9.6m in lending to SMEs despite pandemic
- Over €151m in total loans since foundation, supporting over 2,700 Irish SMEs
- Over €7m in lending issues under the government’s CCGS scheme since launching product in January 2021
- Strong growth in lending across all sectors, in particular among service-based businesses, wholesale & retail, and IT & Communications
Commenting on the €150m milestone, Niall O’Grady, CEO of Linked Finance, said: “Reaching the milestone of €150m shows the continuing migration there is by SMEs to the fast and efficient approach that alternative fintech lenders like Linked Finance can offer. It is a reassuring sign of the drive and ambition of Irish SMEs to see them investing in their operations with the aim of rapidly recovering as the country starts to emerge from the pandemic. In recent months we have seen a notable increase in lending to businesses across the retail and wholesale sector signalling positive sentiment and that restocking is taking place in advance of reopening as Covid restrictions ease.”
A regular Linked Finance borrower who has recently availed of a new loan through the CCGS scheme is the Tara Slevin Group, a distributor of branded promotional products. The company recently secured their fifth Linked Finance loan to support their fulfilment of a growing order book and to further develop their online presence.
Eddie Slevin of Tara Slevin Group, said: “In a year of huge change, our business has had to move quickly to take advantage of opportunities as they’ve come our way. Linked Finance’s continued ability to deliver quick decisions through a simple, user-friendly application process has proved vital to our business time and again, and this time, the lower cost of funds through the government-backed Covid-19 Credit Guarantee Scheme has been an added bonus”.
