Microfinance Ireland Financial Statements 2023 (Microfinance Ireland)

Summary

• In 2023 Microfinance Ireland approved €6.59m in loans to 442 small businesses, supporting an additional 576 jobs.p.5
• Since commencing trading in 2012, it has approved almost €83.5m in loans to 5,077 businesses, supporting almost 10,400 jobs.p.5
• The fund provides loans up to €25,000 for up to 5 years to microenterprises that experience challenges accessing bank credit.p.5
• The loan approval rate for the year was 46%.p.5
• It received 994 applications in 2023 (2022: 959) and approved 442 loans worth €6.59m compared with 458 loans worth €6.92m in 2022.p.8
• It disbursed 397 loans worth just over €6.0m, which supported 309 jobs.p.14
• The deficit on ordinary activities was €103,000 (2022: €1,903,000 surplus).p.14

Key insights

1. Loans approved in 2023 supported 576 jobs compared with 681 in 2022.p.8
2. Government capital funding to date amounts to €49.8m, of which €30.2m remains on the balance sheet.p.8
3. The Minister made an initial grant of €10m, with further grant funding of €39.8m received up to 31 December 2022.p.13
4. Interest rates were increased by 1% to 6.5%, or 5.5% if an application is submitted through the LEO network.p.10
5. The direct channel accounted for c. 64% of all applications, and over 70% of applications came from outside Dublin.p.10
6. The approval rate fell from 48% to 46%.p.14
7. The fund repaid €6,500 thousand of borrowings during the year.p.31