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AFCA’s chief executive has delivered a keynote address five years on from its establishment.
Since the establishment of the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) in 2018, the organisation has handled more than 400,000 complaints from consumers and small businesses, according to AFCA CEO David Locke.
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In delivering his keynote address at AFCA’s Member Forum, Mr Locke said in the last financial year alone, AFCA received nearly 100,000 complaints.
“I thank our members for their work to resolve these issues and the actions they took to remediate their customers,” Mr Locke said.
“I too would like to acknowledge that most of our members have not had a complaint raised against them since AFCA commenced.
“Each year since 2018 around just 16 per cent of financial service provider members had complaints raised with AFCA.”
Mr Locke noted that credit complaints have changed in the wake of cost-of-living issues over the last year, with the popularity of buy now, pay later (BNPL) products leading to more complaints about this form of credit.
“BNPL providers are not, in most circumstances, required to be members of AFCA, but I acknowledge those who join voluntarily to give their customers access to the Scheme,” Mr Locke said.
The CEO further stated that working with industry has been “a priority for AFCA over the years”.
He added that AFCA plays a “unique role” in the financial services sector and “developing strong and meaningful relationships” with members is crucial to AFCA’s ability to “inform change and influence better practice”.
Broker complaints remain low in FY23
AFCA previously reported in its annual review that the volume of complaints lodged against brokers in FY23 continues to be nominal.
Of the record 96,987 complaints lodged by consumers during this time (a rise of 34 per cent), AFCA’s Datacube revealed that there were only 332 complaints made against the broker channel, representing 0.3 per cent of all complaints despite approximately 77 per cent of AFCA’s 44,958 members being credit representatives (and more than 2,000 being mortgage brokers).
According to AFCA, there was a 27 per cent rise in banking and finance complaints (53,648), the highest number of complaints in this product area since AFCA commenced operations in 2018–19.
The majority of complaints (36,688) were lodged against banks, with banking and finance complaints largely focusing on personal transaction accounts (26 per cent), credit cards (20 per cent) and home loans (13 per cent).
The main issues related to unauthorised transactions and service quality.
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