Google announced back in May that ads that promote payday loans that require repayment within 60 days and loans with interest rates above 35 percent would no longer be accepted or displayed starting July 13. But strangely, a number of people are noticing that payday loans are still showing in the search results, despite the fact the ban was supposed to start a week ago.
But now, it seems that Google is now beginning to roll out the ban. Better late than never, right? The search engine company posted update to the ad policies in the AdWords help center that covers personal loans, high-APR ( which is short for annual percentage rate) and personal loans on Wednesday afternoon. The policy regarding short-term personal loans is global, while high-APR personal loans is affecting only US advertisers.
In the policy, you’ll find the following reasons for ad disapproval:
- Payday loans: “Personal loans which require repayment in full in 60 days or less from the date the loan is issued (we refer to these as ‘Short-term personal loans’). This policy applies to advertisers who offer loans directly, lead generators, and those who connect consumers with third-party lenders.”
- High interest loans: “In the United States, we do not allow ads for personal loans where the Annual Percentage Rate (APR) is 36% or higher. Advertisers for personal loans in the United States must display their maximum APR, calculated consistently with the Truth in Lending Act (TILA).”
If anybody tries putting any payday and high-interest loans out there on Google’s platform, they’ll find that they will no longer be accepted. Google will remove any existing ads from the system over the next several weeks. This will take some time to do, since Google will probably have to manually check the loan terms listed on advertiser websites before deciding if the ads will be disapproved.