Why are Irish businesses choosing alternative finance? Banks have never picked up their risk appetite to support Irish businesses since the last recession. Entrepreneurs quickly found themselves at the mercy of banks looking to call in loans. Banks downsized and lost a lot of their specialised lending teams. Fintechs were quietly hiring and building agile systems to knock out quotes in days, where before the banks were taking weeks or months due to outdated legacy systems and lack of will due to market dominance. Now that we’re coming out the other side of the pandemic, this trend is set to accelerate.

Today Irish businesses have access to government supported loans, but only for a limited time. When pandemic loans & supports are gone the good news is that the era of ultra-low interest rates looks set to continue. There is a lot of money sitting in negative interest rates with banks and investors are motivated to seek better returns by supporting businesses with debt or equity funding.

For microbusinesses getting everyday business finance, owners now find that dealing with non-bank lenders gives them that personal touch they used to get with the banks, in a quick turnaround and at fair rates. For SMEs looking to grow, aquire or merge in this fluid time for businesses exiting the worst of the pandemic, capital is available. Talk to the BusinessLoans.ie and use our network of trusted financiers to get you the best deal. Email us at hello@businessloans.ie or call 01 55 636 55.

How much do you know about blockchain? We can barely go a day without hearing about fluctuations in Bitcoin’s price so if you know a bit about that, you get the idea that digital assets are out there in various forms. What’s evolved is that there is more acceptance of blockchain as an efficient & reliable way to keep tabs on ownership, transfers and more.

Security Token Offering

These days, in the EU you can choose to do a Security Token Offering (STO) instead of a traditional share offering. This journey has been largely led by the German regulator BaFin, who back in 2011 classified crypto assets as units of account & financial instruments. Then more recently additional regulatory work was done to define tokens. They must be transferable, have rights like a security & have the ability to be traded on the market.

Can Irish Businesses Benefit?

Irish businesses can use the passportable EU rules to access STOs until the Central Bank regulates them in Ireland. STOs can be used by startups & SMEs to raise capital, as well as for commodities, funds & real estate to have fractional, easily transferable ownership. If this still sounds like gobbledygook; to make it real & get a glimpse of the future, see this article about how $12 million of German real estate was tokenized.

If you are interested in an STO we have partners who can assist. Talk to us on 01 55 636 55 or email hello@businessloans.ie