However, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) issued a lukewarm response to Google's announcement, saying that the proposal may not be enough to prevent tougher legislation being introduced to tackle the issue in the Online Safety Bill.
Writing in a blog post, Ronan Harris, vice president of Google UK and Ireland, said that financial services advertisers will be required to demonstrate that they are authorised by the FCA or qualify for one of the limited exemptions described in the UK Financial Services verification page.
He added that while the move would impact a range of advertisers in the sector, Google’s “utmost priority” is to keep users safe.
A Which? investigation from last year found that certain Google searches were rife with scammers pretending to be well-known financial firms. Their use of pay-per-click adverts allowed them to circumvent some of the search engine’s complex rules to appear in the first line of search results, Which? said...