Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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87. To ask the Minister for Finance if the practice of crowdfunding and peer to peer lending is regulated by the Central Bank; if he is aware of the extent of such practices here; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18212/16]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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Crowdfunding is not currently a regulated activity in Ireland. In June 2014 the Central Bank of Ireland issued a Consumer Notice on Crowdfunding which alerts consumers to the fact that crowdfunding is not a regulated activity. The notice can be found via the following link: . However, it should be noted that if a crowdfunding platform intends to offer ancillary services which are regulated (e.g. payment services), an authorization is needed only as far as these services are concerned, since these services may only be performed by banks or other authorized financial institutions. There are currently several crowdfunding platforms active in the Irish market and the Government recognises that crowdfunding can be a valuable source of funding for SMEs either as a complement to, or as an alternative to traditional bank finance. The European Commission recently published a detailed report which finds that several member states of the EU have developed, or are in the process of developing national regulatory regimes but currently there is no evidence of a firm proposal from the Commission to bring forward an EU regulatory initiative.