Irish fintech Swoop awarded £2.5m under RBS bailout fund

This is second time company has secured financing from fund, having received £5m in 2019

Swoop was founded by Andrea Reynolds and Ciarán Burke in 2017. Photograph: Swoop
Swoop was founded by Andrea Reynolds and Ciarán Burke in 2017. Photograph: Swoop

Irish fintech start-up Swoop Finance has been awarded a further £2.5 million (€2.96m) from a fund established by banking giant RBS as part of its £45 billion bailout programme.

This is the second time the company has secured financing from the fund, having received £5 million from it in June 2019.

Swoop is one of three start-ups – along with British fintechs Codat and Cashplus – to be awarded a combined £12.5 million in grants under the latest round of the banking competition remedies (BCR) scheme.

The £775 million fund, which launched in 2018, was created as a condition on RBS for accepting a £45 billion bailout from the British government during the height of the financial crisis. It is intended to boost competition in the UK’s small business banking sector.

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Founded by Andrea Reynolds, daughter of the late taoiseach Albert, and Ciarán Burke in 2017, Swoop has developed a technology platform designed to simplify and speed-up access to loans, grants and equity funding for SMEs.

Headquartered in Milton Keynes in England, Swoop employs close to 60 people and has raised an estimated €1.6 million to date from backers that include Velocity and Enterprise Ireland.

Charlie Taylor

Charlie Taylor

Charlie Taylor is a former Irish Times business journalist