PPI Terminator

If you’ve already had your fill of phone calls offering “untold riches” in compensation from mis-sold payment protection insurance (PPI) policies, prepare for another media blitz, said Rob Davies in The Observer. The Financial Conduct Authority has set a deadline of 29 August 2019 “to mop up the last victims of the UK’S biggest mis-selling scandal”, and has employed an animatronic head of Hollywood’s famed “Terminator”, Arnie Schwarzenegger, to front a campaign urging people to act now.

So far, around £27bn has been paid out in compensation for PPI policies that customers neither wanted or needed, said The Times. But the City watchdog reckons that the majority of people who were mis-sold policies have yet to make a claim. With Arnie’s help, the final bill socked to building societies, credit card companies and banks could reach more than £43bn, according to the New City Agenda think tank. And even if it does cost them “a cybernetic arm and a leg”, the banks are unlikely “to complain about Arnie’s involvement”, said James Moore in The Independent. They have been “lobbying hard for years to say ‘hasta la vista, baby’ to a problem that is entirely of their own creation”. This new deadline has the advantage of providing just that. In two years’ time, the PPI problem will, finally, be “terminated” – and they’ll “get to keep any ill-gotten gains left over”.