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Financial support for Salons during COVID-19
These are unprecedented times and it can be quite overwhelming. So, to help with this, we’ve brought together a round-up of the financial support available to you. If you bookmark this page, we’ll do our best to update this article as new support packages are announced, but you may also want to bookmark these key pages:
Government Support for Businesses Impacted by COVID-19
Citizen’s Information COVID-19 Overview
What financial support is available to salons during the coronavirus pandemic?
The government have announced a range of financial support packages available to businesses and individuals that range from loans and grants to deferred bills. If you ran a salon you have several new options available:
Access to Loans
The government have announced several credit guarantee schemes for small to medium sized businesses.
The first is the aptly named SME Credit Guarantee Scheme, giving businesses impacted by the pandemic a greater chance of access to loans of up to €1m.
The second, which may be of particular interest to many of our salon customers, is the Microfinance Ireland Covid-19 Business Loan. You could qualify for a loan of up to €50,000 if you have less than 10 full-time employees and less than €2m annual turnover. You can apply for a Microfinance loan here.
Temporary COVID-19 Wage Subsidy Scheme
The scheme, run by Revenue, will allow employers to continue to pay their employees during the coronavirus pandemic. The scheme will run for 12 weeks and started on the 26th March 2020. Essentially the scheme will refund employers up to a maximum of €410 per week for each qualifying employee. As the salon owner you do not qualify under this scheme, but instead should apply for the COVID-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment, below. For more details on the wage subsidy scheme, click here.
COVID-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment
The new COVID-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment is available to employees, self-employed people, students and non-EEA nationals who have lost all their employment due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The payment has a simple one–page application form and is paid at a flat rate payment of €350 per week. Read more on the new COVID-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment here.
Various Personal Support Packages
The 5 retail banks (AIB, Bank of Ireland, KBC, Permanent tsb and Ulster Bank), along with their representative body Banking & Payments Federation Ireland (BPFI) have announced a series of measures to support personal customers and businesses impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
These include:
· A payment break of up to 3 months for businesses and personal customers. If you want to request a payment break, you should contact your bank directly.
· A simplified application process to make it easy for businesses and personal customers to get support from their bank.
· A solution to ensure that COVID-19 applications for a payment break will not affect credit ratings.
· Deferral of court proceedings for 3 months.
If you are experiencing financial difficulty during the COVID-19 pandemic, you should contact your bank as soon as possible to discuss the options available.
In addition, many credit card companies, utilities companies and various other organisations which you may usually have a bill from are extending payment dates and giving greater access to credit. Get in touch with yours to find out how they can help.
For more information on the personal financial support available, click here.
Keeping you up to date
For the our latest updates on financial support available, as well as other industry-related coronavirus updates and what we are doing to help you through this time, you can visit our dedicated Covid-19 support page here.
We’ll also be bringing you some great new content to help keep you entertained whilst on lockdown, as well as expert advice on how to utilise the downtime to improve your business in preparation for when the doors open again. Head over to our inspiration section for more!
Freelance Focus
Freelance Focus, is a one stop resource for anyone working as a freelancer or thinking of going freelance in the hair & beauty industry, which includes a FREE downloadable guide filled with advice, useful insights, experiences and tips (from experienced freelancers) to help you understand the steps needed to make the right choices for you.
