from Hacker News

Google Launches Credit Cards for Small Businesses

by Mistone on 10/8/12, 10:13 PM with 16 comments

• by dangrossman on 10/8/12, 11:47 PM

  This is a strange offering.

  If you wanted to pay for AdWords on credit, why wouldn't you be doing so already? I assume most businesses are already using a credit or charge card. And getting benefits like cash back or points for doing so.

  If you're already doing that, why would you want to switch to a Google card? They offer no apparent benefits aside from a possible higher credit limit. If someone can't get a decent line of credit, would they really spend so much more on AdWords if given a Google card that they'll be more profitable?

  If a business can't get credit at all, why would the banks Google partners with extend them some?

• by programminggeek on 10/8/12, 11:27 PM

  For some businesses this is probably fine, but at the same time Google has a long history of being ok with a business one day and the next day deciding that business is no longer acceptable under Google's policies and shutting down accounts. How long til Google does the same thing to credit card accounts? Also, at what point is this business profitable enough that Google mandates this as a payment mechanism?

• by rm999 on 10/9/12, 12:46 AM

  Amazon started a similar service very recently: http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2012/10/05/ama...

  Instead of a credit card it's a loan (which makes more sense to me), but basically the same idea.

• by Lukeas14 on 10/8/12, 11:21 PM

  Sounds like 2 genius ways for Google to extract more revenue from their core service.

  One, they'll start seeing increased sales from companies who can now spend money on Adwords they don't currently have in the bank. This revenue is almost 100% new since the capital was not available before. Although, it's possible some companies were just using other credit cards to finance their ad buys.

  Two, Google would start collecting interest. This doesn't sounds cheap if you consider the risk of default and actually collecting on those default. But they could probably sell those loans to collection agencies and still make a profit.

• by gojomo on 10/8/12, 11:37 PM

  Cross-referencing display ads seen with credit card purchases made could help 'close the loop' on ad campaigns for which conversions are currently harder to measure.

  So perhaps this is a first toe-in-the-water offering, that could grow into a mass-market credit-card program.

• by elchief on 10/8/12, 10:38 PM

  I miss the good old days...dropping $10k a day on adwords on my boss's black AMEX card.

• by samstave on 10/9/12, 2:37 AM

  "Don't you worry, we got everything you need here in the Company Store! So, get back to work!"

• by witoldc on 10/8/12, 11:29 PM

  I thought it was standard to use a cash back credit card for this sort of thing.