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Imagine you’re the owner of a successful Irish small and medium-sized enterprises (SME). You’ve built your business over decades and you’re now nearing retirement so the time has come to decide who replaces you. There’s no manager who can afford to buy you out, and no family to succeed you. Your options are limited: sell…

The first of this winter’s Fuel Allowance Scheme payments are set to start this week. The means-assessed payment will be paid for 28 weeks to 410,000 households across the state. It is made at the weekly rate of €33 or, if preferred, by way of two instalment payments of €462 each. The scheme was recently…

Another wave of return-to-office orders made headlines recently. Large technology and media companies, including Microsoft, Paramount and Comcast have joined firms such as Amazon, JPMorgan Chase, Nike, and even the US federal government in announcing policies limiting employees’ opportunities to work remotely. This is not solely an American phenomenon: major Irish banks, including Bank of…

Nvidia will invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI and supply it with data centre chips, the companies said today, marking a tie-up between two of the highest-profile players in the global artificial intelligence race. The move underscores the increasingly overlapping interests of the various tech giants developing advanced AI systems. The deal gives chipmaker…

As the college year begins, FraudSMART is launching a campaign warning students to be on alert for money mule recruiters, particularly through social media advertisements. Almost €9.4 million was laundered through money mule accounts in the 12 months to June this year, according to FraudSMART, the fraud awareness initiative led by Banking & Payments Federation…

The framing of the budget has stepped up a gear in recent days. The message is already clear that this is going to be a very different set of figures to those of recent years. It will instead be more akin to the conservative offerings unveiled in the period from 2016 to 2020. Prudence and…

When Budget 2026 is announced on 7 October, it will be the first time the current government will have an opportunity to show the people where its priorities lie when money is on the line. One thing, heavily tipped to happen in this Budget is for restaurants and food-serving businesses to see their VAT rate…

The operator of Dublin Airport has announced new security rules surrounding liquids and gels in hand luggage, due to come into effect at midnight tonight. The changes are the result of a multi-million euro upgrade of the airport’s scanning technology. Thirty new C3 scanners, which make it easier to detect what is inside passengers’ bags,…

The Low Pay Commission is expected to recommend to the Government an increase of 5% to the National Minimum Wage. The rate is currently at €13.50 per hour. An increase of 5% would bring the rate to €14.17 per hour. The Government usually follows the Commission’s recommendations. The national minimum wage rate was last changed…

The use of smartphones and smartwatches, as the preferred payment method in Ireland, is continuing to grow. New figures show that contactless payments accounted for 87.9% of all point-of-sale (POS) card payments during the first half of the year. Banking and Payments Federation Ireland (BPFI) said 58.2% of the payments were made using mobile wallets…