News

Directors that control more than 15pc of a business can now claim the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme (EWSS). This follows an update from the Minister for Finance, Paschal Donohoe. From tomorrow EWSS will replace the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme. The subsidy, which is based on an employees gross weekly wage, can be claimed by directors […]

Manufacturing activity kept growing last month but at a slower pace than in July amid weakening demand and resumed job cuts. The monthly purchasing managers’ index (PMI) produced by IHS Markit for AIB found that business conditions for manufacturers “continued to improve in August but the recovery lost momentum”. The headline PMI score declined from […]

The Government’s new Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme came into effect at midnight, and will continue to provide payroll support until the end of March 2021. It will replace the current Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme, which is underpinning the wages of almost 370,000 employees. The TWSS, which was launched last March, assisted many businesses to survive […]

Economic sentiment fell backwards in August for the first time since the country began to emerge from lockdown and despite the Government’s Stimulus Package announced on July 23. Ireland is an outlier with European Commission data on Friday suggesting economic confidence in the euro area as a whole had continued to improve in August. Here […]

Irish pension schemes have reduced their equity allocations by almost a third in the past three years as they diversify into fixed income and real assets – property and infrastructure – as new sources of returns. Mercer’s 2020 European Asset allocation insights shows average equity allocations for Irish defined benefit schemes fell to 27% this […]

State-backed fund Microfinance Ireland has opened its new €15m Covid-19 fund to support small businesses through the current period of uncertainty and to protect jobs that have been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic here.  Small businesses can apply for loans up to €25,000 for a three-year term with no repayments and no interest due for […]

Banks in the UK are coming under growing pressure from regulators to get their new hubs in the European Union up and running even as Covid-19 and foot-dragging by clients disrupt Brexit relocation plans, banks and regulators say.  Unfettered direct access to the EU for Britian’s financial services sector, worth around £26 billion a year, […]

Some financial brokers are still not aware that they need to submit audited accounts to the Central Bank every year. The regulator said there is also a need for greater accuracy in the data submitted to it by some intermediaries. It said it was engaged in follow-up supervisory check-ups with firms where gaps have been […]

There was a sharp rise in the number of people approved for a mortgage last month compared with the previous month. Close to 3,400 buyers were approved for a home loan, a rise of 51pc on the figures for June. But this was still down 30pc on the number approved for a mortgage in July […]

The international financial services and insurance sectors are set to be among the industries least impacted by Covid-19, according to a report from the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation. The assessment does not include the domestic banks, which have all posted interim losses this year due to the global pandemic. Nonetheless, the sector is […]