Invest in Irish business

Peer to Peer Lending by Linked Finance

Diversify your portfolio

Irish businesses are increasingly looking for faster, smarter ways to access capital and liquidity to keep running and growing. Linked Finance offers a great way for investors like you to meet the needs of SMEs, by connecting those who want to invest money, with those businesses who need working capital. It’s called Peer to Peer Lending, or P2P Lending for short.

The process of investing is simple, quick and you remain in full control of when you invest and which businesses you support. Join the thousands of other people who are already doing Peer to Peer lending to businesses across Ireland. 

 

 

earn attractive rewards

With Linked Finance, borrowers get access to fast, no hassle finance, while our investors get regular repayments of capital and interest. You can start supporting Irish businesses with an investment as little as €50. 

All prospective borrowers are fully assessed for credit-worthiness by our experienced credit team before they are presented to investors. 

In these time of low returns on cash deposits, P2P lending can provide good returns on your investments over time. As with all investments, P2P lending comes with an element of risk involved and we would recommend reading our FAQs before investing. 

Warning: Investment in crowdfunding projects entails risks, including the risk of partial or entire loss of the money invested. Your investment is not covered by a deposit guarantee scheme or by an investor compensation scheme.

great reasons to do peer to peer lending

Regular Returns

Start  investing with as little as €50! You receive monthly returns starting immediately. Re-­invest these returns or take as cash.

Easy to build Portfolio

With new loans added all the time and an easy-to-use Autobid tool, you can quickly build a diverse portfolio, lending to businesses from every sector of the Irish economy.

Support your Local Community

Help Irish businesses in your community grow, offer better products & services and employ more local people.

Reinvest

You can choose to re-invest these returns and earn compound rates of interest or take them as income whenever you require it.

Industry Diversification

New business loans appear on the site everyday, across every business sector; from retail, manufacturing and wholesale to services, education and healthcare etc

Manage Risk

Linked Finance credit assess all the businesses and you pick the ones you like. All businesses have proven track records and we have the lowest default rate in the industry.

Reporting

All your portfolio and account reports are available online and in real time at the click of a mouse. Dynamic performance summaries, charts and reports.

Special Offers

Many businesses you lend to will offer you exclusive special offers and discounts on their products and services.

AutoBid

Too busy to check every business every day? Our AutoBid function can manage your lending for you by loan grades and term.

what our investors say about Peer to Peer lending

"On Linked Finance, I lend directly to local businesses at rates of between 6% and 16.0%. And the compounding effect means I'm making a very healthy return."

Michael Kane

Linked Finance Lender

"Lending at Linked Finance is about helping Entrepreneurs by giving them the vital funding to build their businesses so we can all have a brighter future".

Bobby Kerr

Entrepreneur and Media Broadcaster

"Getting virtually no returns from the bank I was looking for something different to do with my savings. With Linked Finance I now get a decent return".

Mary Flynn

Lender from Cashel Co. Tipperary

FAQs about peer to peer Lending

Any person or company can start doing P2P lending on Linked Finance, but you must meet the following criteria:

a) If you are lending as an individual, you must:

  • be over 18 and a have valid passport or driving licence
  • have a European Union bank account

b) If you are lending as a company, you must:

  • be registered with a European Union Companies Registration Office or equivalent.
  • have an European Union bank account

When lenders register on the site, we check their identity according to the highest industry standards. By doing so, we know exactly who is joining our network.

There is no cap on the total you can lend to businesses on Linked Finance. You can make bids from €50 to €5,000 on each loan request.

The interest rates available on Linked Finance range from 6.95% – 17.5% depending on the loan request.

On Linked Finance, you can lend to limited companies, sole traders and partnerships, who are looking for loans of between €10,000 and €500,000.

We review each potential borrower and we only allow businesses to borrow if they have successfully completed a full, rigorous credit evaluation process. We base this process on validating key up-to-date financial information and ensuring the creditworthiness of each borrower posted on the site.

First, register as a lender with Linked Finance. Second, transfer funds into your Linked Finance lender account. Once you have registered, you will be taken to My Account every time you log in. There are two main ways you can lend on Linked Finance:
  • Lend quickly and easily using the Autobid tool (see questions 9, 10 and 11).
  • Search our ‘Live Loans’ and choose the businesses to which you want to lend by bidding on their loan requests.
If your bid succeeds, money will be transferred from your Linked Finance lender account to the Linked Finance account of the borrower. When the loan is issued to the borrower, you will hold a loan contract. This entitles you to monthly repayments at the interest rate that accompanied the loan request.
There are two main ways you can choose businesses to lend to on Linked Finance:
  1. Search ‘Live Loans’ and choose the businesses you want to lend to by finding businesses you know or like, or sectors you have an interest in
  2. Lend quickly and easily using the Autobid tool (see questions 9, 10 and 11 in View All FAQs below).
The first repayment you get from a borrower will usually arrive within a month of you lending to them.

It is important to remember that with lending to businesses, there is an element of risk. Linked Finance carries out extensive checks so only creditworthy businesses can borrow on the site. To minimise the potential of risk we advise all lenders to spread their money across 20 or more businesses. By lending only a small proportion to each business loan, you reduce your exposure. This is a key factor in successful lending on Linked Finance.

Join the peer to peer lending community