Podcast Ep 340: Bank of Ireland and Nevo have launched the country’s first end-to-end digital platform for electric vehicle buyers. The Bank’s Karen Kennedy and Simon Andreucetti from Nevo describe what this means for the future of auto retail in Ireland.
The numbers of Irish car drivers choosing to grow electric is going fast with electric vehicle registrations up 115% year-on year as of May 2026.
Yet, for many of those drivers, the process of actually buying an electric vehicle has remained fragmented with model information on one site, financing on another, charging guidance somewhere else entirely, and a dealership visit required to pull it all together.
“What we are trying to do is move the conversation earlier, to the point where the consumer actually is, which is the research stage”
That confusing picture is now history with the recent launch of Ireland’s first dedicated EV marketplace.
Bank of Ireland and Nevo have been working together for almost three years on EV education and consumer events such as the annual Nevo Electric Vehicle Show.
But this new platform – accessible through the Bank of Ireland website and integrated with Nevo’s existing vehicle listings – allows buyers to browse every new electric vehicle on the Irish market, access grants and incentives information, and complete a finance application, all before setting foot in a showroom.
The launch comes as the consumer drive towards EVs accelerates. Bank of Ireland’s EV lending grew by 46% in 2025, with the pattern of growth continuing in 2026. The Bank’s 16 motor brand partnerships accounted for 43% of all new EV sales YTD May 2026.
Bank of Ireland’s latest credit and debit card spending data for May reveals a significant increase in spend on EV charging and usage of charging stations year on year. Spend on EV charging for May 2026 showed an increase of 84.53% when compared to the same period last year, signalling strong growth in electric driving.
Driving a better tomorrow
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In this podcast, Karen Kennedy and Simon Andreucetti go into detail on how the platform was built, what the data from Nevo’s consumer sentiment surveys reveals about shifting attitudes toward electric vehicles, and what they expect the market to look like in twelve months.
They also address the practical questions many buyers still carry: charging infrastructure, range anxiety, and whether an EV genuinely suits life in Ireland.
The answer, they argue, is more often yes than most people assume. Ireland’s high proportion of homes with driveways makes home charging more accessible here than in many comparable markets.
The average daily commute of 25 to 30 kilometres is well within the range a standard EV covers in a single charge. And 95% of EV owners in Nevo’s most recent survey said the vehicle meets their daily needs.
Electric dreams and shared purpose
Nevo was founded around four years ago with a specific focus on countering misinformation in the market about EVs. Bank of Ireland came in early, drawn by a shared objective.
“Our generation, and particularly the next generation, looks at a car purchase the way they look at a phone contract. It is all about the monthly payment, not the sticker price”
Speaking on the ThinkBusiness Podcast, Andreucetti said: “They could see the journey we were on and they wanted to support it because it was the same agenda they had. They wanted to make sure consumers in the Irish market had the right information about vehicles.
That early work took on the form of EV shows, consumer driving experience roadshows and online educational content. Three national EV shows have now taken place with a fourth planned for November.
The new EV marketplace is next layer on top of that strong foundation.
Karen Kennedy, senior sales and relationships manager at Bank of Ireland notes that the platform makes it the only Irish bank to offer such an integrated service.
“It is a fully digital journey where people can go to one place, find the EV they are looking for, learn about incentives, grants and charging, and then, if they need finance, see what a monthly payment would look like and proceed to a full application. We are working with a number of the car brands in Ireland, which means we can bring those brands directly to Bank of Ireland customers.”
The digital journey to EV ownership
The single biggest barrier to EV adoption in Ireland, according to Nevo’s consumer sentiment research, remains the upfront cost of the vehicle. It is not a problem unique to EVs; cars broadly are the second largest purchase most people make in their lifetimes. What the partnership aims to do is reframe the question entirely.
“Our generation, and particularly the next generation, looks at a car purchase the way they look at a phone contract,” Kennedy says. “It is all about the monthly payment, not the sticker price.”
The Bank of Ireland marketplace and the Nevo website now both display live monthly pricing across every listed vehicle, drawing on real-time rates from the car brands the bank works with. Buyers can filter their search by monthly budget, and see which models sit within their range before they engage with a dealer at all.
The finance product underpinning this is a Personal Contract Plan, or PCP, in which the car brand provides a guaranteed future value at the end of the agreement. That structure, Kennedy explains, is what makes the monthly figures competitive. The integration means those rates appear automatically and accurately across the platform, rather than requiring a separate calculation or a phone call.
The most significant new feature is the ability to submit a full finance application directly from the Nevo platform, without visiting a dealership first. Once submitted, the application routes into Bank of Ireland’s system and simultaneously notifies the relevant local dealer.
“Bank of Ireland will reach out to that customer with information to help them on the finance application,” Andreucetti says, “so the consumer can find out quite quickly whether they can afford this vehicle. When they go in to meet the local dealer, they have confidence. They know what they can afford, and they can have a much more enriched conversation.”
76% of applicants receive an automated decision within seconds. For buyers, that means knowing their position before they have left the house. For dealers, it means the customers arriving at their forecourt are informed, pre-qualified, and ready to focus on the vehicle.
Kennedy is clear that the dealership is not being displaced. “There is still very much a place for the dealership within that journey,” she says. “What we are trying to do is move the conversation earlier, to the point where the consumer actually is, which is the research stage.”
“Once you make the switch and get past the initial learning curve, which takes no more than a couple of weeks, there is no looking back.”
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Listen to the ThinkBusiness Podcast for business insights and inspiration. Latest episodes are here. You can also listen to the Podcast on:
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