Verification of Financial Services advertisers in the UK

New measures to safeguard ads

The surge in digital transactions over the last few years has led more businesses to rely on online advertising to reach customers across the globe, including the promotion of financial products and services. Nothing is more important than protecting consumers and advertisers from bad actors, who may attempt to target unwary consumers with fraudulent transactions or scams.

To protect consumers from misleading or deceitful financial promotions, Microsoft is adding new measures that’ll help safeguard the trust and safety of ads on our platform.

Starting early 2023, we’ll allow only advertisers duly authorised by the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to present regulated financial promotions in the UK. Advertisers will be required to provide proof of authorisation by the UK FCA to present Financial Promotion Ads or specify if they’re either 1) a non-financial services advertiser who may target consumers seeking financial services, such as e-commerce platforms, or 2) government entities such as authorities or regulators under the “.gov.uk” domain.

Keep the following into consideration:

• These requirements are in addition to the Advertiser Identity Verification requirements laid out by Microsoft as part of its safety measures to protect consumers, advertisers, and publishers.
• Failure to complete this verification process will result in ads being blocked from serving in the UK—the account will continue to perform as before with respect to non-Financial Services Ads and in markets outside of the UK.

We care about your safety and that of your consumers

At Microsoft Advertising, we’ll continue to focus our investments to ensure a safe environment for consumers, advertisers, publishers, and the overall Microsoft Advertising network. The UK Financial Services verification is a strategically important step in building the necessary infrastructure to realise this vision. We encourage all advertisers targeting UK customers interested in Financial Services to go through this verification to ensure a safe user experience.

Advertiser partnerships are very important to us, and we’ll continue our efforts in empowering advertisers globally through a reliable and trustworthy advertising platform.

Learn more about the UK Financial Services verification here.