News

Rogue operators could face a fine of €10 million or 10% of worldwide turnover for breaches of competition law, under a new law published today. The Competition (Amendment) Bill 2022 will give more powers to the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission and the Commission for Communications Regulation. It will enhance the ability of the CCPC…

The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission has launched a new Money Tools campaign which aims to provide consumers with information on how to compare and switch various financial services including mortgages, current accounts and credit cards. The CCPC Money Tools allows consumers to quickly and easily compare features, including maintenance fees, charges and interest rates,…

Raising capital and recruiting and retaining staff are the biggest challenges facing Irish tech start-ups, according to the findings of a survey carried out by Scale Ireland. 230 start-up founders and CEOs contributed to the survey, which aims to gauge the sentiment of entrepreneurs in the sector. It looks at key issues including the economy,…

A third of the working population aged between 20 and 69 continue to have no pension coverage outside of the State pension, new data from the Central Statistics Office shows. 73% of those with a supplementary pension said theirs was provided through their work, with 11% holding a personal pension and 16% possessing both. The…

Consumer sentiment in January recovered much of the loss it suffered in December in the face of a surge in the highly contagious Omicron variant, a survey showed today, with a further improvement expected next month. The KBC Bank Ireland consumer sentiment index climbed to 81.9 in January from 74.9 in December, falling short of…

A new €10m fund has been established to invest in socially-conscious start-ups on the island of Ireland. The Impact Syndicate, which is being launched by the Halo Business Angel Network, will look to back firms that are seeking to make “positive and measurable social and environmental change alongside financial returns”. Its members will make investments…

Recipients of jobseekers’ payments will soon have to attend a post office again in order to collect them, under plans announced by the Minister for Social Protection. In 2020 as the Covid-19 pandemic hit, recipients were given the option of having the payments made electronically directly into their bank accounts. This was to try to…

The Central Bank has said the economy is expected to continue to grow strongly this year. Its latest Quarterly Bulletin forecasts growth in the domestic economy of just over 7% in 2022. However, inflation is expected to be higher for longer than previously thought, although it is expected to wane in the second half of…

New research suggests that 65% of consumers don’t know how their credit card interest is calculated. The survey carried out by the Irish League of Credit Unions (ILCU) shows that this figure is up 7% on the previous survey conducted in 2020. Of the respondents who said they are familiar with the credit card interest…

Last year saw the highest number of mortgage drawdowns since 2009, worth a total value of €10.5 billion. 43,994 mortgages were drawn down in 2021, a 9.4% increase on the previous year. Figures from Banking and Payments Federation Ireland show the value of mortgage drawdowns last year was the highest since 2008, when the financial…