Bright Grey's Roger Edwards: Google a product provider?

Isn't Google amazing? If you want to find out the answer to an obscure question, the exact location of an address you are heading to, or a photograph of a movie star you admire, positive results are only a few clicks away.

My mother was recently reminiscing about songs we used to like as children when we were on holiday in Spain in the early '80s.

Armed with only a suggestion of what those lyrics actually were, Google located the songs and I soon had a compilation CD prepared that brought back happy memories for the whole family.

If you are checking out holiday destinations, you do not have to rely on the perfectly-shot photographs of your preferred resort from their own website.

A Google map allows you to zoom right down from space to ground level. You can check if there is a huge building site next to your idyllic tropical paradise.

And of course you can Google yourself and see what the world knows and thinks of you. Go on admit it. You've all done it. How far did you have to scroll down to find yourself?

More and more people are using Google to search for financial services products. This is leading them in equal numbers to either advisers or directly to providers.

This has to be a good thing because it means more people are finding out about protection and some of them are then contacting advisers to discuss it in more detail. So Google is our friend and can potentially help us increase our business.

But as Ian McKenna recently pointed out - what if Google started to do financial services in the UK?

It is already launching mortgages in the USA and it is rumoured to be gearing up for a UK pilot as well.

If an increasing number of people are using Google to seek out information about protection and other financial products, it follows they might be similarly comfortable buying those products from Google.

Some would argue consumers wouldn't be as comfortable with Google as a financial services provider because it doesn't have a track record there.

They will be more comfortable with long-established brands with long, financially-secure histories. Who on earth would want a Google mortgage? Well, I have an Egg mortgage. Does that sound any less strange?

What would Google term assurance and Google critical illness cover look like?

Would it be a threat to the market as we know it? Would it help to address the protection gap? Could it actually create opportunities for financial advisers.

As you would expect, amazing as it is, Google is not yet providing me with answers to these questions.

Roger Edwards is proposition director at Bright Grey