Google launched a financial advisory service called Google Advisor in the U.S.A. last month. It now seems that they are preparing to launch the service in the U.K. as well.
Google Advisor provides a comparison of various financial products available in the market. Until now, the service was restricted to the U.S. only. However, searches for the word ‘mortgage’ on Google U.K. have now started providing interesting results:
Google Comparison ad for ‘mortgage’
At the top of the paid search results is an ad by Google promoting their own mortgage comparison service. Comparison ads were introduced back in May 2009, but were limited to a few states in the U.S.A. When users click on a comparison ad, they are taken to a list of details from various lenders, and users can fill in specifics to view a list of the services matching their requirements.
Google comparison of UK mortgages
An interested user can then call one of the Google pay per call numbers to connect to a specific lender for further information, or the user can request a call back from the provider.
The good thing about this facility from Google is that the user’s personal information and phone number are protected from the financial advisors. Users are given an 03-number from which they are indirectly connected to the financial services provider.
In most cases, Google provides detailed results about the amount of interest that would accumulate in various accounts, thus helping the user to decide what kind of financial arrangement suits them best. However, as far as mortgage deals are concerned, they seem to have a very limited list on offer.
Other sites such as Bankrate, Money Supermarket, Wells Fargo and Quicken Loans offer similar but much more comprehensive services, so users are not likely to switch to Google’s comparison service immediately. However, the appearance of Comparison ads could signal the upcoming launch of Google Advisor, which could gradually turn into a significant source of competition for many of the currently popular financial service comparison sites.
