Arnie muscles in to help watchdog enforce PPI deadline

Arnold Schwarzenegger's likeness features in the FCA adverts. Picture: Financial Conduct Authority/PA Wire

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Arnold Schwarzenegger has been enlisted by Britain's financial watchdog to help raise awareness of the termination of a deadline to make a complaint about payment protection insurance (PPI).

The Hollywood giant turned politician will feature in a Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) television advert in which an animatronic model of his head is seen urging people to decide about making a PPI complaint before the deadline on 29 August 2019.

The FCA’s advert featuring the Terminator star’s likeness is aimed at prompting people to check if they had PPI and whether they want to make a complaint as the decade-long scandal draws to a close.

Andrew Bailey, chief executive of the FCA, said: “Our campaign aims to cut through the noise on PPI.

“We want to encourage people to decide whether to find out if they had PPI and whether to complain or not. Our message, and Arnie’s, is ‘do it now’ and I urge people to make a decision before the deadline on 29 August 2019.”

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More than £27.4 billion has been paid out to customers by high street banks since the FCA introduced rules for complaining about PPI in 2011. The policies were mis-sold alongside loans, credit cards, store cards and mortgages mostly between the 1990s and 2010.

The campaign featuring will appear on TV, online and on outdoor advertising across the UK over the next two years.

The advert’s production costs stand at £4.9 million and the campaign is being paid for by the 18 firms including banks, building societies and credit card providers who had the most PPI complaints.

The total campaign cost £42.2m, which included £24.4m on advertising spend, and £3m on “partnerships, PR and social media customer service”.

A further £1m was shelled out on legal fees, staff costs, contingency, while “agency fees” cost the FCA £3m.

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