Google in the dock for £3bn, your e-money safer from today, and a credit broker just collapsed

Three things landed yesterday, 7th May 2026, that matter to ordinary consumers. A new £3bn class action against Google over how it sold display advertising. A new FCA safeguarding regime that came into force on the same day, designed to make sure that when payment and e-money firms fail their customers actually get their money back. And the collapse of Kanda Products & Services Ltd, an FCA-authorised credit broker that was matching customers to home-improvement loans through about 700 tradespeople.

Here is what each one is, what it changes, and what you might want to do.

A new £3bn class action against Google

On 7th May 2026 a body called AGC Collective Actions, represented by the law firm KP Law, filed an application at the Competition Appeal Tribunal for an opt-out class action against Google. The claim says Google favoured its own display-advertising services and squeezed competitors out, and that as a result UK advertisers paid more for less effective advertising over a long period. The estimated total damages are up to £3 billion, around $4 billion.

This one is not aimed at consumers directly. The class is "any UK-based advertiser who paid for Google display advertising, whether directly or through a media agency". So the people in scope are small businesses, charities, agencies, and anyone else who has run a Google display campaign. If you have ever bought banner-style advertising through Google, you are very likely in scope.

The mechanism is the same one that the Which? Apple iCloud case is using. An opt-out class action means that if the Tribunal certifies it, eligible advertisers are in by default. They do not need to register. They do not need to file anything. If the case wins, money flows to the class.

You do not need to do anything yet. The case has been filed but not yet certified. Keep your billing records and any campaign reports. We will update when the Tribunal sets a certification hearing.

The FCA safeguarding regime that came into force yesterday

This is quieter but matters more for most people. From 7th May 2026, the FCA has put new rules on every authorised payment institution, every authorised e-money institution, every small e-money institution, and every credit union that issues e-money. The rules force these firms to reconcile their safeguarded customer funds every day, report on them more often, and submit to enhanced audit.

Why does that matter to you? Because the firms in scope include some of the most popular places people now keep their money. Revolut, Wise, PayPal, Monzo's e-money permissions, Starling's e-money permissions, and dozens of smaller fintechs all sit under one or another of those licences. Until yesterday, when one of these firms failed, customers on average recovered around 35p in the pound, and often had to wait a long time for it.

Two things to know.

First, "safeguarded funds" is not the same as FSCS protection. FSCS protection covers up to £85,000 per banking licence and applies to deposits at banks. Safeguarded funds is a separate regime where the firm has to hold customer money in a ring-fenced account with a credit institution. From yesterday, the operational checks on whether that money is actually where the firm says it is have stepped up substantially.

Second, this is not a new layer of compensation. It is a stronger layer of plumbing. If your e-money provider fails, you should now have a faster and fuller route to your own money.

If you keep significant balances at a fintech, this is a quiet good-news story. Worth knowing. Not worth panicking about either way.

A credit broker has failed: what it means if Kanda introduced you to a loan

Kanda Products & Services Ltd entered liquidation on 6th May 2026. The FCA confirmed it on 7th May. Kanda was an FCA-authorised credit broker that worked with about 700 tradespeople up and down the country, who introduced customers to point-of-sale finance for home improvements and similar purchases. Joint Liquidators are FRP Advisory.

The named lenders are Humm Group Limited, Propensio Finance Limited, and Tandem Bank Limited. If Kanda introduced you to any of them, the most important thing to understand is this. Your loan is still your loan. It sits between you and the lender, not between you and Kanda. You should keep paying it. You should ignore anyone who suggests otherwise.

If you have a complaint about how Kanda or the introducing tradesperson behaved, it does not disappear because the broker has failed. The firm responsible for handling that complaint is the lender, under the FCA's DISP rules. So:

• If the introducer pressure-sold you, complain to the lender.
• If the loan was unaffordable on day one, complain to the lender.
• If you signed up for something different than what was agreed, complain to the lender.
• If you paid by credit card and the underlying purchase has gone wrong, you may have a Section 75 claim against the credit card issuer separately.

If the lender does not handle your complaint properly within eight weeks, you can refer it to the Financial Ombudsman Service free of charge.

There is no FSCS protection for credit broking, so the broker's failure itself does not unlock compensation. But the conduct of the broker is still relevant to the lender's duty to you.

What we are doing about all three

We are tagging the affected lenders and the FCA-warned firms in our company database overnight, so anyone using EvenStance to manage a dispute against them sees the right context. We are updating the part of Frank, our AI dispute coach, that handles credit broker failures so the routing is automatic. And we are starting work on a public page for the Google class action, similar to the one we already maintain for the Apple iCloud case.

If you want to keep an eye on any of these, start a free case and we will keep you updated. The advantage of doing it through us rather than just bookmarking news articles is that if something does go wrong with one of these firms, the system already knows enough about your situation to skip straight to the next step.

Bottom line

Three different shapes of regulatory and legal action in a single 24-hour window. A class action that pulls hundreds of thousands of small businesses into a £3bn fight against Google whether they noticed or not. A new daily-reconciliation regime that quietly makes a generation of fintech accounts safer than they were on Friday. And a credit broker failure that leaves about 700 introducer relationships and a chunk of home-improvement borrowers needing to know that the lender, not the broker, is who they need to deal with from here.

You do not need to do anything dramatic. But it is worth knowing which firm holds your money, which firm holds your loan, and which company sold you the advertising space, because in May 2026 each of those answers came with its own consumer-protection news.