Mr. Olivier Vander Elst:

In a previous life Mr. Rafferty was involved in Smart Transport and we knew each other. We were attracted to LinkedFinance because of its progressive element with which we could identify. The whole process of going to the bank is not pleasant but in going through LinkedFinance the process moves faster and the bidding is quite exciting. It suddenly becomes a story to tell, that one managed to get a loan at an interesting rate. We obtained our loan at a very good rate which much more competitive than the rate on a loan from the bank would have been. Afterwards, many people came forward to us at trade shows and elsewhere to tell us they were among our lenders. Automatically, one is bound to give them a discount. These loans create a bond that one would not have with a bank and we will probably be interested in a second round loan at another stage.

The experience has been all positive. As Mr. McMonagle said, dealing with LinkedFinance is like us talking to a company that understands where we are and which is as excited by its development growth, as we are about ours. We are bound together on the same journey. We have been spreading the word and it is quite surprising that it is not used more. The problem is in finding the right borrowers. Perhaps the help LinkedFinance needs is in getting the message across, without having to spend significant marketing money on it. Getting borrowers should be an easy problem to solve.