SME Awards 2015

SME Awards 2015

We are fans of business, in particular SME’s and thought we’d help spread the word about the SME Awards 2015.

Here’s the detail:

The SME Awards are an informal national business awards ceremony that will take place on April 25th in the Radisson Hotel, Cork. The Awards are modelled on the Web Awards and the Social Media Awards, two very successful awards shows run yearly by Mulley Communications.

The SME Awards differ from other awards as:

FREE – Any SME can enter the awards without paying a fee.

The public are involved in judging as are your peers.

Sponsors can’t be nominated in any category and can’t influence judging.

The costs to come along to the ceremony are not prohibitive and tuxes are not required. €50 early bird tickets but you can still win if you don’t attend.

They’re informal and fun.

Is it not another awards show in a sea of hundreds more?

Not really. We ourselves are a small business and we work with SMEs daily. We know the stresses, the joys and the high you can get …

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RTE Drivetime: Talking money on ‘Kidults’ with Karl Deeter & Jill Kerby

This week on RTE Drivetime’s ‘Talking Money’ segment we looked at the issue some parents have with ‘Kidults’ who are grown up children living at home. There are many reasons behind the increased occurrence of people remaining at home, and there are both advantages and disadvantages, we tried our best to give some tips that might help!

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RTE Sean O’Rourke Show: Karl Deeter & Ronan Lyons on Central Bank rules

Last week on the Sean O’Rourke Show Karl Deeter and Ronan Lyons (Trinity College & Daft.ie) had a good robust debate about lending rules and whether restrictions were good or bad. This week in light of the actual changes that occurred they had a second conversation on the outcomes.

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The Anton Savage Show: Anton speaks to Irish Mortgage Brokers

Anton had Karl Deeter on to discuss the proposed mortgage loan caps that were being discussed by the Central Bank. Our view is that something more nuanced was needed, thankfully, at the time of posting this we now know the details and they did opt for a more carefully balanced solution.

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over saving

The problem of over-saving

Just when we thought we heard it all in terms of the strange scenarios you encounter in credit, up pop’s something new, the problem of ‘over-saving’. For most of us the problem is ‘saving anything at all’, but in some cases the potential borrower goes far beyond what is good for them.

Here is how it manifests.

So far we have seen this mainly in people who are at average wage and below, and how it occurs is that in an effort to save as much as possible that they then make their bank statements look bad.

I got a call from one of our brokers to look at a case they had, the bank statements didn’t look good, they had referral fee’s and were in overdraft.

A referral fee is where you might have no overdraft and you go overdrawn, you might have €10 left and go to withdraw €200. In this case you’ll be minus €190 and see a thing called a ‘referral fee’ which is typically €4.44 it means that you broke the terms of the account …

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RTE Today with Sean O’Rourke: Karl Deeter & Ronan Lyons debate mortgage caps

This is a copy of a good debate that took place on the Sean O’Rourke show today on RTE Radio. It was a good example of how two contrary points can both have supporting arguments which seek different ends but where both sides have validity. We think that a return to bubble credit would be a disaster, but equally hold dear the idea that it isn’t up to Central Banks to orchestrate the winners and losers in society.

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Talking Money on New Years Resolutions, 5th January 2015

This was our first time to do ‘Talking Money’ on RTE’s Drivetime Show, we looked at financial resolutions, how to make them simple, and most importantly, how to set them up so you actually implement them, the key is to take small steps and form habits rather than trying to do it all at once. Listen in to the clip to find out more!

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2015 irish mortgage interest rates

Mortgage rates set to drop and competition to increase in 2015

We have commented several times since last year that the trend for mortgage rates in 2015 will be to see them drop. With spreads of c. 300bp’s on lending it makes it one of the reliably profitable sectors of banking given the stringent underwriting being applied.

With the Central Bank looking to curtail first time buyers but doing nothing about incumbent borrowers getting restricted it means that they have directed the market towards refinancing.

This is because one of the niches left on the table is that of existing variable rate holders, which banks will now try to tempt away from one another in an effort to grow market share.

There are many who cannot take part and below is a list of the mortgage holders who won’t benefit.

Those in negative equity, they are going to be stuck when it comes to refinance, they can trade up with a negative equity mortgage but they won’t be able to ‘switch’. Those on fixed rates which accounts for in the region of 50,000 mortgage accounts, they face break penalties, and only …
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