Eligible R&D Activities in Fintech

The Fintech Industry is booming in Ireland with collaborations between companies in the Finance and Technology areas are now commonplace. According to Irish Advantage ‘Ireland is perfectly placed to produce a world-class crop of innovative fintech leaders’.  

Technology-enabled innovation in financial services has led to the creation of new business models, applications, processes, products and digital currencies.  The nature of these activities taking place in Financial Technology makes it an industry ripe for claiming and availing of Tax Incentives such as the Research & Development (R&D) tax credit.

Ireland has a favourable Research & Development (R&D) tax credit which allows a 25% Tax Credit for companies carrying out R&D activities. Our sector-specific expertise allows us to identify eligible activities at the underlying technology level, and identify the technological advancements in the development of financial products or services.

General FinTech activities that may be eligible for a claim:

• Processing power, improving system performance, memory management;
• Development of a new operating systems new software framework and/or architecture
• Discovering new generic methods of capturing, transmitting, storing, retrieving or manipulating, searching or securing data;
• Advancement of software to run new types of computer hardware, particularly where there are conflicts between hardware and software eg. online transactions and card payments;
• Improvement of new programming languages or software development tools or the development of significant extensions to an existing language
• Increased changes in new technologies for use in application software eg. Algorithm design
• Interoperability 3^rd party products, simulation and motion capture, concurrency, AR and VR.

Expenditures can include wages, third party contractor cost (contractor performing R&D in EEA), materials, plant and machinery, and overheads.

Can opensource software qualify?

• The company can still be eligible if they extend or further develop it to overcome limitations/deficiencies. 80% of claims nowadays involve some level of opensource and this still is eligible.

Is existing software languages eligible?

• Almost all companies use existing software languages and they could still be eligible. It is not what language they use but rather what creative uses they find with/for it. 99% of claims nowadays involve some existing software languages.

 Is the company using existing tools and or libraries (and therefore not eligible)?

• If the company has further developed or extended these tools and or libraries, they could be eligible.

 Do internal processes qualify?

• Many large companies do internal software development, upgrades and integration for internal processes. This could be eligible but is usually overlooked.

Visiativ Ireland are delighted to have a number of leading International Fintech companies on their books. Thanks to our resident Expert IT Technical Consultant we have managed identify qualifying activities and help our clients maximise their claims.

Contact us today to discuss your companies development activities in Fintech and we will offer you an Initial Consultation FREE of charge.