Victims of Britain’s biggest ever mis-selling scandal have been filing more than 20,000 PPI claims a day against banks and other lenders in a huge rush to meet the final deadline, the British watchdog has revealed. city.

The Financial Conduct Authority said many were encouraged by the advertising blitz it launched in the summer of 2019 to warn consumers that they had little time left to file a complaint.

The ads featured an animatronic likeness of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator character, which urged people to “do it now” before it’s too late.

The FCA revealed yesterday that 8.9 million complaints had been filed in the 14 months leading up to last August’s deadline.

About 6.2 million customers visited the regulator’s PPI website and 110,000 called its helpline.

Overall, the FCA said more than 32.4million complaints had been filed and £38billion paid out in damages. Analysts expect the final bill paid by banks to exceed £50bn, with Lloyds Banking Group setting aside £22bn.

Jonathan Davidson, FCA’s executive director of oversight, retail and licensing, said the PPI scandal was “the biggest consumer redress exercise in UK history”.

He added: “We decided to deal with PUPs in an orderly way and to urge consumers who wanted to complain about PUPs to take action. Our campaign was a success.

PPI, or payment protection insurance, was designed to cover loan repayments if borrowers fell ill or lost their jobs.

But it became one of the biggest financial scandals in recent history after many PPI products were sold to borrowers who didn’t want or need them.

The FCA said its efforts to address the issue included making it easier for bank customers to check whether they had been sold PPI and pressuring lenders to quickly pay off valid claims.