If you’re running a Payday or high-interesting loan site, you may want to pay attention to what Google is up to. The company has announced that they will no longer be accepting and displaying ads promoting payday loans requiring repayment within 60 days.
The update to the AdWords policy even includes a ban on ads for high-interest loans with an APR of 36 percent or higher in the US. The director of globally product policy at Google, David Graff, made the announcement in a blog post Wednesday.
“When reviewing our policies, research has shown that these loans can result in unaffordable payment and high default rates for users so we will be updating our policies globally to reflect that.”
Graff said that the change isn’t going to be affecting companies offering loans like mortgages, car loans, student loans, commercial loans and revolving lines of credit (such as credit cards).
This move made Wade Henderson, CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, happy, as he told Google,
“This new policy addresses many of the longstanding concerns shared by the entire civil rights community about predatory payday lending. These companies have long used slick advertising and aggressive marketing to trap consumers into outrageously high interest loans — often those least able to afford it.”
The policy updates go into effect on July 13, 2016.