Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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176. To ask the Minister for Finance further to Parliamentary Question No. 62 of 11 May 2017, the name of each bank and non-bank lender of Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland funds in 2016; and the monetary amount loaned to SMEs in tabular form. [24076/17]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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The Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland began lending in March 2015. Its purpose is to make sustainable, flexible and appropriately priced finance available to viable Irish SMEs and support investment in them that encourages growth and facilitates employment across the whole country.

The SBCI uses an on-lending model; this means it does not lend directly to SMEs, rather it lends through partner financial institutions known as on-lenders. The SBCI currently has eight on-lending partners, three bank and five non-bank. These are: AIB, Bank of Ireland, Ulster Bank, Finance Ireland Limited, Merrion Fleet Management Ltd, First Citizen Finance, Bibby Financial Services Ireland and FEXCO Asset Finance  

To the end of December 2016, the SBCI had committed €906m to SMEs through these 8 on-lending partners. The SBCI is currently seeking to broaden its distribution capability and market coverage; it is engaging with potential new on-lenders in this regard. Furthermore, the SBCI is working to develop innovative products, thereby serving to drive competition in the SME finance market.

To the end of December 2016, the SBCI has lent €544 million to 12,593 SMEs. The SMEs who received SBCI finance are from a variety of business and economic sectors. More than 80% of loans are for investment purposes and the average loan size is €43,200. There is a broad regional spread of the SMEs supported, with 84.8% of them based outside Dublin.

The following table shows the on-lenders and the amount committed by the SBCI to each on-lender in their funding agreement. This is the maximum amount of SBCI funding each on-lender has available to lend out at present. The individual amount of lending by each on-lending partner to SMEs is commercially sensitive and is not disclosed publicly.