If Inheritance Tax savings was not enough enticement -or more accurately, as Steve Dewsnip tells us, it would save your home from the predatory Spanish Taxman– , the perfomance of the deal was presented as being so good that you would end up having that extra generous income by putting “your bricks to work for you” (Allan Graydon).

The attached is a brutally misleading illustration that, additionally, omits any reference to adverse market movements.

But the banks rationale was different: why would you want to put your customers off buying into the product if it was working for the bank? At the end of the day, if it all went tits up banks would argue that the customers could and should have “gone elsewhere to get accurate advice” (Nordea Bank Ipse dixit).

Rumour has it that for someone somewhere in the mountains of South Cordoba…it did actually work for a few months. The ERVA investigations teams are keen to meet this endangered specie…

(the attached was given to a Rothschild customer).