Allied Irish Bank launches £50m fund for Northern OMBs

ALLIED Irish Bank (GB) has announced it has created a £50m fund for owner managed businesses seeking medium or long-term capital finance for growth in the North.

It said the fund further demonstrates the bank’s commitment to working with businesses in the North and West, providing competitively priced finance and full banking facilities to established, growing businesses.

And the bank said it will waive arrangement fees on finance up to £10m agreed by December 31 and drawn down within 60 days of the offer letter. 

Head of GB Business, Gerard O’Keeffe, said: “Many business lending initiatives are failing to connect in the UK because banks are not taking into account the diversity of the so called SME sector.

“We deliberately made this a targeted programme because we know owner managed businesses especially well, and as the engine of the economy, we want to make it as easy as possible for them to access capital and expand their businesses. Both the British and Irish governments have launched schemes to provide access to finance for businesses and as a specialist business bank in Britain, we are eager to play our part in that.”

Regional director Dominick O’Grady added: “Our loan book is fully funded by customer deposits and we are very pleased that we can use this to support more owner managed businesses and professional practices in the North and West by lending to help them grow. We’re seeing an uplift in demand from companies who seem increasingly confident about the outlook for growth. While it may be too early to say the tide has turned, we’re experiencing a steady rise in enquiries for financing support across many local business sectors including healthcare, leisure, professional services and manufacturing.”