Happy International Women's Day from BusinessLoans.ie

BusinessLoans.ie is celebrating International Women’s Day. The theme this year is #ChooseToChallenge. We choose to challenge the imbalance of lending & investment in female-founded companies. Looking back over the past year & the finance we have helped with, the majority of the loans were for businesses owned and run by men. We need to work harder on being more accessible and are setting a goal to overcome this.

We did help some great female-founded businesses though. Our favourite was a loan for a uniforms business during the pandemic. They were pivoting from their usual hotel uniforms business to helping our nurses and medical professionals battling Covid19 by importing & manufacturing gear to keep them safe.

Wherever you’re at with your entrepreneurship journey there’s help at hand. Check out these 5 essential supports for female entrepreneurs in Ireland. Throughout 2021 we would love to help more female founders in Ireland with business loans to grow their business. We are happy to set up a Zoom and discuss loans as well as help with any useful connections, finance or otherwise, in our network. Get in touch today.

Business Loans for eCommerce in Ireland

BusinessLoans.ie has a new finance partner to help eCommerce businesses grow their business. It’s hard to finance eCommerce businesses as they get through startup phase. Whatever growth hacks and tips you hear, you need finance for stock; and then to shift that stock you need online ads. There is now a solution on the market that plugs in to your analytics and can make you an automated loan offer every month from €5000 to €1,000,000 plus. The solution grows with you until you have the cash reserves to no longer need it, or you can get cheaper bank finance. Ask us about this solution today on 01 55 636 55

A Seasonal Liqueur Business Toasts an Invoice Finance Solution

This week BusinessLoans.ie helped a client in the drinks industry. They make a liqueur that’s especially popular around Christmas, requiring extra working capital to ramp up production to serve their distributors across Ireland, Europe & the USA. They ultimately needed extra funds for October, November & December. They looked at traditional invoice finance options but were put off by ongoing fees throughout the year when they were not going to be using the facility. We discussed one-off invoice financing with them. This would enable them to “cash in” invoices when they need to & without the commitment of an ongoing solution.

So how does it work? Essentially it enables you to release cash trapped in invoices & speed up your working capital cycle. You can pick and choose which invoices to fund 80% payment in 24 hours.

BENEFITS FOR YOUR BUSINESS

• No personal guarantees or additional security – funding decision based on the debtor

• No long-term contracts, no onerous paperwork

• Multiple currencies supported

• Fast decisions, fast funding & simple process

• Affordable and flexible finance

• Bad debt protection

CRITERIA TO ACCESS FUNDING

• Your business is trading with limited companies

• You have insurable debtors

• Your invoices are between €15,000 and €2,000,000

• Your business has been trading more than 2 years

• Your turnover is more than €500,000

If one-off invoice finance is of interest we’re here to guide you through the process of getting your debtors approved & uploading invoices. You can then receive 80% now and a final settlement when your debtor pays. Talk to the business loans team today on 01 55 636 55 or web chat via the portal in the bottom right of this screen now. We’re here to help, 7 days.

Budget 2021 – How it Affects Business Owners in Ireland

The Irish Budget 2021 was the biggest yet and designed to get Irish business through Brexit and COVID-19. The Minister of Finance, Paschal Donohoe said “Budget 2021 has been prepared against a background of extraordinary uncertainty regarding near-term economic and budgetary prospects. Here are the key points:

• A new scheme for businesses which closed because of Covid-19 will provide a maximum of €5,000 per week - payments based on 2019 average weekly turnover. Effective from today until the end of March next year, with the first payments in mid-November 

• Debt warehousing provisions for SMEs will be extended for a period of a year with no interest. A €30 million fund will be administered through the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund 

• VAT rate reduction from 13.5% to 9% for hospitality sector 

• Extension of the commercial rates holiday 

• New Covid Restrictions Support Scheme (CRSS) 

• Extension of the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme through 2021 

• €3.4bn Recovery Fund  

• €10.1bn infrastructure spending in 2021 

• Increasing Earned Income Credit up to €1,650 for self-employed – the same as the employee tax credit for PAYE workers 

If your business requires finance to help with your business budget for the year ahead, we’re here to help. Call 01 55 636 55 now.

Updated List of Financial Supports For Irish Business Owners

The Covid supports list for Irish businesses is changing all the time. Here is an updated list of government-backed loans and competitions open to micro, small & medium businesses navigating their way through the difficult Covid period.

• Fáilte Ireland Covid 19 Adaption Fund

• Covid-19 Online Retail Scheme

• Microfinance Ireland Loan

• Local Enterprise Office

• Covid-19 Credit Guarantee Scheme

• Enterprise Ireland Funds

• The Sustaining Enterprise Fund

• Covid-19 Business Financial Planning Grant

• Enterprise Support Grant for micro enterprises

• Údarás na Gaeltachta’s COVID-19 Online Trading Scheme

• Intertrade Ireland E-Merge Programme

• Music Industry Stimulus Package

• The Irish Business Design Challenge

• Apprenticeship Incentivisation Scheme

There are many more business finance options from alternative lenders if you find you don’t qualify for the above or they are not suitable for your purpose. We are especially busy now with refinancing existing business debt, moving it to terms of 5 years & making repayments more manageable. We are here to help and available 7 days to organise business loan quotes on 01 55 636 55

BusinessLoans.ie MD Rupert Hogan Interviewed by deBanked Magazine

In a recent interview with reporter Brendan Garrett of deBanked Magazine, New York, entitled “Ireland’s Alternative Finance Industry and the Coronavirus” BusinessLoans.ie MD Rupert Hogan gave his insights on business finance in the current climate alongside Jamie Heaslip of Flender Finance, Chris Burge of Spark Crowdfunding and Garrett Cassidy of Trezeo.

Rupert Hogan “explained that some businesses would be better going with LEO over banks and even some non-banks. Noting that non-bank lenders can’t compete with the rates offered by LEO and, just like in the US, banks can’t act with the speed that these business owners need. And described the current situation as The Great Lockdown and banks aren’t too helpful, even in the good times, due to the high rejection rates that SMEs experience when looking for loans. In regards to merchant cash advances, he’s expecting, when the MCA companies reopen, that they’ll be funding at reduced rates, some doing as much as 50% less than their pre-coronavirus amounts.”

The article concludes, “altogether, Ireland’s alternative finance industry, like others the world over, has been hit hard by the coronavirus’s economic effects. With the country’s phased lifting of the lockdown being plotted out over the course of the summer, the island nation may not see as quick a return to commerce as certain American states, but its fintechs and non-banks hope to stick around, by hook or by crook, as the Irish say, by any means possible.” We at www.BusinessLoans.ie agree.

Rupert Hogan MD BusinessLoans.ie & Sean Murray Editor deBanked when they met in Dublin October 2019.