Bank of Ireland reports a surge in farmers availing of working capital loans to weather current storms in agriculture sector.
Bank of Ireland has recorded a significant rise in applications to its Agri Assist Loan Fund since the beginning of this year.
Farmers nationwide continue to access the agri-sector support scheme to help deal with the spiralling costs of farm input materials and a notable decline in farm output prices – particularly on tillage and dairy farms.
“Farmers face ever-rising input costs and falling output prices particularly across dairy and tillage farms”
Bank of Ireland was the first Irish bank to launch its own Agri Assist product in June 2022, offering competitive loan interest rates from 4.89% (variable) for term lending up to €500,000.
80% of agri-loan applications are online
The bank revealed that it now accounts for 55% of all new lending to farmers and that 80% of all of its agri loan applications are now made online.
Another loan scheme called Dairyflex is available to milk suppliers of participating co-ops for unsecured borrowings of up to €120,000, while farmers can also avail of longer secured term loans for land purchases (up to 20 years) and large farm development loans of up to 15 years.
“In an era of rising interest rates and volatility in input and output prices, we launched the Agri Assist Loan Fund to provide farmers with additional working capital and to help them access competitively-priced loans to weather the current storms being experienced throughout the agriculture industry,” said Eoin Lowry, head of Agri Sector, Bank of Ireland.
“In 2022, inflation cost farmers €1.5bn extra to run their farms and since the beginning of 2023 we have witnessed an increase in the number of applicants to the loan scheme, with farmers facing ever-rising input costs and falling output prices particularly across dairy and tillage farms.
“Bank of Ireland stands ready to assist and advise farmers throughout this process, and with our range of flexible loans starting from as low as 4.76% (variable) and user-friendly online lending platform, we can help farmers react to the ever-evolving market forces currently being experienced.”
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