In an interview with the Irish Times, Mr Deane-Johns suggested that P2B lending in Ireland could expand by €100 million by 2017. P2P lending in Britain as a whole grew by over 800% between 2011 and 2013. Mr Deane-Johns believes that growth-potential in Ireland may be even higher:
“Based on what’s happening in Britain, this is easily achievable. Peer-to-business lending could, if anything, grow even faster in Ireland because of the greater sense of community between businesses and people here.”
Peter O’Mahoney, Chief Executive of the Irish P2B lender Linked Finance, said of his platform:
“When we started we were doing two loans a week, now it is two loans a day and we’ve had zero defaults and zero late repayments so far.”
Linked Finance has arranged €1.7 million of loans for 57 SMEs since being founded in 2013.
