Google offers to lend to UK firms looking to buy 'AdWords'

The internet giant said "eligible customers" would be sent out invitations to accept a new credit card which they could use to purchase AdWords and repay the money they owe later.

Google's AdWords operates by allowing companies to buy the right for their ads to appear beside natural results when certain terms are searched for via Google's search engine.

UK businesses willing to spend at least £500 on AdWords could borrow the money from Google under the 'AdWords Business Credit' scheme. Companies would have 56 days in which to repay the credit without paying interest, but would generally have to pay back the loan at a variable interest rate of 11.9% APR thereafter.

Google said it was expanding its lending scheme after running a pilot in the US last year.

"To make it easier for small businesses to pay for their AdWords campaigns and track their spending, last July we piloted AdWords Business Credit in the US, a credit card specifically for AdWords," Brent Callinicos, Google's vice president, said in a company blog. "More than 1,400 businesses from a variety of industries participated in the pilot ... and their feedback was overwhelmingly positive."

Callinicos said that 74% of those who had responded to the company's post-pilot survey said that they use the AdWords Business Credit scheme as a "primary" method for paying for AdWords.

"Every day, AdWords enables more than one million businesses, the majority of which are SMBs, to connect with their customers online," he said. "We hope AdWords Business Credit will give Small and Medium Sized Businesses more flexibility—some ‘extra credit’—so they're able to focus on growing their businesses even further."