Google is expanding a financial services ad verification program it launched in the UK last summer after seeing what it describes as a “definite drop” in reports of ads promoting financial scams.
Australia, Singapore and Taiwan are first in line to get the requirement, as part of a phased expansion of the policy. But Google says it plans to further extend the verification requirements to advertisers in other countries and regions in the coming months.
The verification layer sits on top of Google’s financial products and services policies — a loop in a local financial regulator that advertisers must prove authorized to have their financial services ads accepted by Google — adding a layer of security against accepting. and display ads for crypto investment scams and the like.
In the UK, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is the regulatory body that financial services advertisers must demonstrate that they are authorized. Equal regulatory bodies will play a role in the three new markets.
Google said advertisers looking to promote financial products and services in these markets can request verification by the end of June, with the policy taking effect August 30, 2022.
“Advertisers who have not completed the new verification process by this date will no longer be allowed to advertise financial services,” it warns in a blog post written by Alejandro Borgia, a Google director for ad privacy and security.
“We work tirelessly to ensure the ads we serve are safe and reliable, and we know that collaboration and collaboration with government regulators is critical to our success. That is why we are working closely with regulators in these three markets to ensure that this program is effective at scale,” he added.
Google has offered no data to back up its claim that the policy change has led to a significant drop in reports of financial scam ads in the UK market – providing only an overall (global) figure for ads it blocked or removed in 2021 (58.9 million) for violating financial services policies, according to the Ads Safety Report 2021.
Before Google launched its financial ad verification policy in the UK, Google was under pressure from the FCA to crack down on scams – with the regulator threatening legal action if Google continued to accept unscreened financial ads.