Linked Finance passes €150m milestone in peer-to-peer lending

Q1 lending to Irish SMEs up 4% year-on-year

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Linked Finance has issued over €150 million in loans to Irish SMEs. The peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platform passed the milestone as the company issued €9.6 million 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 €7 million 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.

To date, Linked Finance has provided over 2,700 loans to ambitious local businesses in every county of the country and hitting the €150 million 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.

“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,” said Niall O’Grady, CEO of Linked Finance.

“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.”

TechCentral Reporters

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