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Corporate Finance and Deal Advisory
We offer a dedicated team of experienced individuals with a focus on successfully executing transactions for corporates and financial institutions. We offer an integrated approach, with our corporate finance specialists working seamlessly with tax and other specialists to ensure that every angle is covered.
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Digital Risk
Grant Thornton offers solutions to the digital risk issues you are sure to face. Our skilled and experienced security team can helping by advising and consulting, giving you peace of mind, clear value for money and an enhanced ability to react to attacks.
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Technology Consulting
Motivating and assisting our clients to pursue, maintain and secure the benefits of digital solutions is at the core of our Digital Transformation teams' agenda and goals. We work with business leaders to deliver efficient digital strategies and operating models that provide new or enhanced capabilities.
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Economic Advisory
Our all-island Economics Advisory team combines expertise in economics and business with a wealth of experience across the public and private sectors.
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Forensic Accounting
We have a different way of doing business by delivering real insight through a combination of technical rigour, commercial experience and intuitive judgment. We take pride in delivering responsive and tailored solutions to all our clients, capitalising on the wealth of experience housed within our Belfast and wider Forensics team
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People and Change Consulting
The Grant Thornton People & Change Consulting practice works with clients on these issues as well as on all aspects of how they attract, retain, engage develop, deploy and lead their people.
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Restructuring
We work with a wide variety of clients and stakeholders such as high street banks, private equity funds, directors, government agencies and creditors to implement solutions which provide the best possible outcomes.
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Corporate and International Tax
Northern Ireland businesses face further challenges as they operate in the only part of the UK that has a land border with a country offering a lower tax rate.
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Employer Solutions
Our team specialises in remuneration and incentive planning and works closely with employers, shareholders and employees to ensure that business strategies are aligned and goals achieved in the most tax efficient, cost-effective manner.
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Entrepreneur and Private Client Taxes
Our team of experienced advisors are on hand to guide you through any decision or transaction ranging from the establishment of new business ventures, to realising value on exit, to succession planning and providing for loved ones.
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Global Mobility Services
Grant Thornton offer a different approach to managing global mobility. We have brought together specialists from our tax, global payroll, people and change and financial accounting teams across Ireland and Northern Ireland, while drawing on the knowledge and insights of our global network of over 143 offices of mobility professionals to provide you with a holistic approach to managing global mobility.
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Outsourced Payroll
Our outsourced service provides valued service to over 150 separate PAYE schemes. These ranging from 1 to 1000 employees, working for micro, SME and global employers. The service is supported by the integrated network of tax and global mobility teams and the wider Grant Thornton network delivering a seamless service. Experienced staff deliver a personal service built around your business needs.
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Tax Disputes and Investigations
Our Tax Disputes and Investigation team is made up of tax experts and former HMRC investigators who have years of experience in dealing with a variety of tax investigations. Our expertise and insight can guide you through all interactions, keeping your cost at a minimum while allowing you to continue with the day to day running of your business.
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VAT and Indirect Taxes
At Grant Thornton (NI) LLP, our team helps Northern Ireland businesses manage their UK and global indirect tax risks which, as transactional taxes, can quickly become big liabilities.
Fintech putting power in hands of the customer
14 Nov 2017Financial Technology (“FinTech”), is a rapidly expanding industry which is utilising technology advancements to enable financial transactions to take place in a more efficient and customer centric manner. A number of areas have been established or significantly impacted by FinTech; Peer-to-Peer (P2P) lending, mobile payments, and instant payment notifications, to name a few.
As a result of technological advancements in other areas of their lives, customers are demanding the same from their banks. Customers want 24/7 access to their accounts, money and assets. The paradigm is shifting, with customers taking back power and demanding more. The ongoing bank branch closures across Ireland and the UK demonstrates the changing climate. With a reduction in branches, banks are investing heavily in technology to reduce costs, to improve their customer experience and to increase customer self-service in an attempt to ward off the threat of FinTech start-ups.
FinTechs, in contrast to banks, are free from the shackles of dated infrastructure and large corporate bureaucracy. There has been a boom of start-ups looking to benefit from liberal regulation within Ireland and the UK to deliver the service requirements of empowered customers. We now have the situation whereby customers can apply for a loan and have the money in their accounts within minutes of the application – even at weekends. It is not hard to see the threat this poses to the status quo.
A number of FinTechs within the UK have been granted temporary banking licences to gauge uptake. Given the inertia that exists within the customer account realm, customer uptake has been surprisingly swift and substantial. A number of full banking licences have now been granted, demonstrating the appeal for something different, whether that be a new product, a new service, or a new operating model. Customers want their finances brought into the modern era and they’re willing to trade ongoing loyalty for an experience that caters to their needs.
The blockchain is another example of FinTech and one which has been a hot topic across multiple industries for a number of years. From a financial services perspective, it is being touted to revolutionise the payments industry, by making it more secure and more efficient, and ultimately cheaper to do business.
We have only begun to scratch the surface on the implications of FinTech. This is an industry in growth mode with its footprint spreading across the entirety of the financial services sector and beyond. FinTechs are delivering options and competition to a sector that had become stale. Banks are in a unique position, they have the opportunity to capitalise on these advancements if they invest wisely. If they choose to ignore the threat, believing customers will do what they have always done, they are likely to be in for a rude awakening.