Emma Stranack, FCA’s PPI Deadline Campaign Lead, explains how the FCA is raising awareness of the 29 August 2019 PPI deadline and how consumers can take action.

With just a few weeks to go until the 29 August 2019 PPI complaints deadline, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) wants to encourage everyone to make a decision now about whether to complain about PPI. Put simply, if people haven’t complained to their provider by the deadline, they won’t be able to claim money back for PPI.

The PPI Deadline Campaign

The FCA is committed to raising awareness of the PPI deadline among a wide and varied audience. As of June, nearly 4 million people have accessed our PPI website and we’ve had 44,000 calls to our dedicated helpline. A total of £350.7m was paid in May 2019 to customers who complained about the way they were sold PPI. This takes the amount paid since January 2011 to £35.7bn.

To up the ante in the final run-up to the deadline this summer, we are running a large-scale, national communications campaign, incorporating advertising, PR, digital and partnership engagement.

The national advertising campaign features the animatronic head of Arnold Schwarzenegger who we are bringing back for the final time. To emphasise how pressing the deadline is, Arnie is in a hydraulic press, urging people to take action on PPI before it’s too late. As the deadline approaches, the series of advertisements will gradually reveal Arnie’s fate…

Working with partners across the country

To help ensure everyone has the chance to make a decision about PPI – including people who might be less confident or less able to claim for money they might be owed, we are working with a range of organisations and charities. This includes the Money Advice Trust through its National Debtline and Business Debtline services, Age UK, Gingerbread, Mind, Learning Disabilities England, Citizens’ Advice and many more.

To assist these organisations, we’ve developed a suite of PPI deadline campaign materials (some of which feature the Arnie ad creative), including leaflets, posters, social and editorial content, all of which can be downloaded via a dedicated online toolkit (see contact details below).

What is important for consumers to know?

Millions of PPI policies were sold in the UK, mostly between 1990 and 2010 (and some as far back as the 1970s). It was a policy sold with credit products such as loans, mortgages, credit cards, store cards and catalogue credit. If consumers took out a credit product during this period, they may have been sold PPI at the same time.

If the PPI was mis-sold, or a very high level of commission was charged on it, consumers may have grounds to complain and claim money back. It is really important that consumers do this by 29 August 2019. If they haven’t complained to their provider by this deadline, they won’t be able to claim money back for PPI – so they should make their decision as soon as possible.

Checking whether you had PPI is simple and free. And consumers don’t need to worry about paperwork, they just need their name, date of birth and relevant addresses.

Complaining is also free and consumers can do this themselves by complaining directly to the provider who sold them PPI. Providers are obliged to make complaining about PPI simple and will help people through the process.

As the deadline gets even closer – to provide further support – from 5 August our FCA PPI helpline is running extended hours. It will be open 8am-8pm Monday – Friday, including 26 August – bank holiday Monday. The helpline is also open 8am – 5pm on Saturdays. The number is 0800 101 8800.

Further information

If you would like to receive information about our partner FCA PPI deadline toolkit, please get in touch with FCAPPI@kindredagency.com.   We’d really appreciate any support you can give to get the message out to consumers.

For information on PPI generally, visit www.fca.org.uk/ppi or call our helpline: 0800 101 8800. PPI help and information is also available via National Debtline and Business Debtline services.