Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 11 February 2014
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation
Access to Finance for SMEs: Discussion
2:30 pm
Mr. Peter O'Mahony:
Exactly. Since day one, we have had a big surplus of lenders' funds. Because we are not like a bank, we do not need capital. The money is coming from our lenders. Where it came in Funding Circle's case, at the time we had 5,000 registered users. At the time they got the government money, they had 30,000 - six times more - but they doubled in the next three or four months. It was not just the government - it also made the public aware that this was a bona fide way of lending to small businesses.