borrower FAqs
FAQs relating to business Term Loan options
business loans
Any established and creditworthy business, whether it is a limited company, sole trader or business partnership, can apply for a loan on Linked Finance.
Some conditions apply. These include:
- If you are a sole trader, you must be a permanent resident of Ireland. Sole Traders must ensure there are no personal transactions going through the accounts (e.g. a personal mortgage, personal utilities, private health insurance etc). If such transactions are evident the loan application can only be progressed if the borrower segregates their personal expenses into a separate bank account, and can evidence all business transactions only through another account(s) for a minimum of six months.
- If your business is a partnership, it must have a permanent place of business in Ireland and at least half of its partners must be permanent residents of Ireland.
- If your business is a limited company, it must be registered with the Companies Registration Office (CRO).
- It must have filed accounts with the CRO.
- If your business is applying for a standard Term Loan or BillPay loan your business must be trading a minimum of 24 months* or for a Merchant Cash Advance your business must be trading for at least 6 months.
- Annual turnover in excess of €100,000.
- Your business must meet our minimum credit risk and fraud criteria.
*Linked Finance has a bespoke loan product for businesses trading a minimum of 1 year with 1-year financials please contact us for more information.
Linked Finance offers three finance options:
- The minimum amount you can borrow is €10,000. The maximum is €500,000. A standard term loan at a fixed rate of interest and terms of 6 months to 5 years. The loan is repayable in monthly instalments by direct debit.
Examples you can use it for:
- Working Capital including stocking
- Asset Finance (such as the purchase of new machinery, vehicles or technology)
- Capital Expenditure including premises purchases or refurbishment.
2. A Merchant Cash Advance which is a flexible loan repaid over a maximum of 12 months up to €150,000. With an MCA, the facility is repaid daily using a fixed % percentage of your credit and debit card sales.
Examples you can use it for:
- Stocking
- improving working capital
3. A Bill Pay loan at a fixed rate of interest* and a term of 12 months. The loan is repayable in monthly instalments by direct debit.
Examples you can use it for:
- Annual tax bill
- Insurance premiums
To ensure you get a fair interest rate on a Linked Finance loan, the rate you pay is always determined by our credit evaluation process. The rates available range from 6.95% to 17.5% depending on the term and the loan grade we assign to your request.
Our lenders will be ordinary individuals, companies or other organisations. In order to lend on Linked Finance, lenders will need to have registered on the platform and deposited funds.
Once you provide the documents required to complete your application, we typically provide a credit decision within one working day. If approved and you are happy to accept the loan offer, we can publish your loan request on the platform and have the funds ready for drawdown typically within 24 hours.
This can vary depending on the size and duration of the loan.
Applying for a business loan
Complete our online loan application form. Once you have done this, we will request supporting documentation from you in order to carry out credit and fraud checks using the information you have given us. Your application cannot progress until we have received this documentation.
If your application is successful, we will provide you with an official loan offer which will show the grade, interest rate, monthly repayments and fees. At that point, you can decide if you would like to have your loan request published on the platform.
If you decide to proceed, you are committing to taking the loan and paying the fees, unless your loan request fails to fund.
Once your loan request is posted on the site, the funding process will commence.
For all applications we need these documents from your business:
- Company bank statements for the past six months. This can be provided to us via Open Banking and we can pull the necessary information without the need for you to send us copies of your bank statements.
- Your most recent set of ‘signed-off’ accounts
- Tax clearance information
Occasionally, we may request additional information, such as management accounts or proof of contracts, in order to support your loan application. If required, these will be requested, in a clear and timely manner.
What is Open Banking?
Open Banking removes the need for PDF statements and gives you the option to securely share your current account information in read only format directly from your current account by using Plaid. Open Banking provides you with complete control over your data and allows Linked Finance to process your loan application quickly.
Open banking allows borrowers to share their bank account information and transaction data with Linked Finance to assist in assessing an application. Instead of having to manually send bank statements, borrowers can now grant Linked Finance access to their bank account data to allow us to provide finance and carry out the necessary credit evaluations in a faster and more efficient manner.
Transaction data for the past 365 days will be shared with Plaid and Linked Finance. Linked Finance also has the option to refresh this data for 90 days. After 90 days, the customer will need to re-authorise the Open Banking connection.
If you do not wish to share your account data via open banking, simply select the ‘Upload Manually’ option when uploading the documents required to assess your application.
We are required to comply with all anti-money-laundering (AML) and know your customer (KYC) legislative guidelines.
To achieve this we will verify the identity of your business and you to meet these requirements. When your business is approved for a loan you will also need to provide us with proof of identity (copies of a photographic ID ideally your passport or driving licence) and proof of your address documents, as well as documentation relating to your business (must be dated within 90 days of your loan application).
Where there are more than one owner in the business we may require these documents from all those identified with a controlling interest.
Marketplace
Once your loan becomes fully funded, you will receive an electronic copy of your loan contract. Read the loan contract carefully and if you are happy to, accept the terms by electronically signing the document.
Once your loan is fully funded, you have five working days to complete the loan contract.
If your loan request has not been fully funded within the time limit but has achieved at least 90% of the final requested value, we can still proceed to fund your loan request for that amount achieved at the end of the bidding period. If your loan request has not achieved at least 90% funding within the time limit, we will remove it from Linked Finance and all bids will be returned to lenders.
Yes, you can submit a new loan request once the first three* monthly repayments have been met on your current loan. Each individual loan request will undergo a full credit assessment prior to an approval decision.
*Linked Finance reserves the right to vary this policy in exceptional circumstances.
fees & repayments
To apply for a loan with Linked Finance, you must pay an application fee of €125.
If your loan is successfully funded, we will also charge you a completion fee of up to 6% based on the total loan amount.
This is to cover the costs of facilitating the borrowing process. We will deduct these fees from the loan before we transfer the funds to you. For more information on the fees we charge, contact our account management team now on 01 906 0300.
If you accept a loan offer but choose not to take the loan after it has been fully funded, you will still be invoiced for both the application fee and completion fee as detailed in the loan offer.
Fees also apply to missed payments. These fees are specified in your loan contract.
When you are approved for credit, you will be offered a loan at a fixed interest rate. This provides security in knowing what the monthly repayments will be over the full term of the loan.
Repayments are calculated on a fully amortised basis meaning each repayment is made of principal and interest. Interest is calculated on a monthly basis on the outstanding balance.
When you receive a loan offer, your account manager will show you the rate, monthly repayments, interest, and fees. You can then decide if you would like to proceed. This provides security in knowing what the monthly repayments will be over the full term of the loan.
Repayments are calculated using a percentage of your daily debit/credit transactions.
When you receive a loan offer, your account manager will show you the rate, daily repayment percentage, interest, and fees. You can then decide if you would like to proceed. This provides security in knowing what the daily repayment percentage will be over the full term of the loan.
Your loan contract specifies the monthly repayments payable to each lender. Each month we collect the repayments from your bank or building society account by direct debit. It is up to you to ensure that you have sufficient funds in your account to make the repayments.
Your repayments generally start within 30 days of your loan request funding. The exact date is specified in your loan contract.
Please email help@linkedfinance.com immediately if you think you may be late making a repayment
If you fail to make a payment or only make a part-payment, we will contact you and ask you to explain why you missed the payment. Three days later, we will try to collect the outstanding payment a second time. If this fails, we may instruct a debt collection agency to try to collect the amount on behalf of our lenders.
Continued missed payments will result in further debt recovery actions, up to and including formal legal proceedings.
Yes, you can repay a loan early at any time at no extra cost. We don’t penalise borrowers who want to pay off the loan early. You just pay the outstanding principal and the interest accrued until the end of the month in which the loan is repaid.
My account
You can view the status of your loan at any time by logging into your Linked Finance account and clicking into My Account. To login please click here.
Provided you have paid off your loan fully, you may close your Linked Finance account at any time by contacting. Please email your request to help@linkedfinance.com
