Annual Review 2022–23
Contents
- About this Annual Review
- Year at a glance
- Acknowledgement of country
- Board Chair message
- Chief Executive Officer and Chief Ombudsman message
- Organisational overview
- AFCA Independent Review
- Complaints
- Who complained to AFCA?
- Overview of complaints
- Open cases
- Closed cases
- Banking and finance complaints
- Buy now pay later
- Scam complaints
- Financial difficulty complaints
- Small business complaints
- General insurance complaints
- Significant events
- Life insurance complaints
- Superannuation complaints
- Investments and advice complaints
- Cryptocurrency
- Complaints lodged by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples
- Complaints lodged by consumer advocates and financial counsellors
- Complaints lodged by paid representatives
- Complaints outside AFCA’s Rules
- AFCA’s Systemic Issues function
- AFCA’s Code compliance and monitoring functiong
- Engagement, awareness and accessibility
- Corporate information
- AFCA General Purpose Financial Report
- Glossary
Complaints
- 96,987 complaints received. Up 34% on 2021–22
- 86,185 complaints closed. Up 21% on 2021–22
- The average time to close a complaint was 69 days 1
- 28,824 open cases. Up 62% on 2021–22
- $253,809,943 in compensation was awarded to consumers through AFCA’s dispute resolution processes
Complaints received by product line 2
|
Product line |
Total |
|---|---|
|
Banking and finance |
53,638 |
|
General insurance |
27,924 |
|
Superannuation |
6,957 |
|
Investments and advice |
4,840 |
|
Life insurance |
1,898 |
|
Not yet determined |
1,712 |
|
Non-rules |
40 |
Complaints close by product line 2
|
Product line |
Total |
|---|---|
|
Banking and finance |
49,056 |
|
General insurance |
25,570 |
|
Superannuation |
6,142 |
|
Investments and advice |
2,257 |
|
Life insurance |
1,468 |
- 4,849 complaints about financial difficulty received
- 3,807 small business complaints received
- 7,443 complaints excluded due to being outside AFCA’s jurisdiction
Average time taken to close complaints
|
Time |
Percentage |
|---|---|
|
0–30 days |
32% |
|
31–60 days |
32% |
|
61–180 days |
28% |
|
180–365 days |
7% |
|
Greater than 365 |
2% |
Open cases by age
|
Age |
Percentage |
|---|---|
|
0–30 days |
26% |
|
31–60 days |
17% |
|
61–180 days |
30% |
|
180–365 days |
16% |
|
Greater than 365 |
11% |
- 3,701 small business complaints closed
- 4,434 financial difficulty complaints closed
Complaints resolved before determination
|
|
Total |
|---|---|
|
Total |
81,953 |
|
Resolved by agreement or in favour of complainant 3 |
76% |
|
Resolved in favour of financial firm |
2% |
|
Outside Rules/Terms of Reference |
9% |
|
Discontinued/withdrawn |
12% |
|
By assessment |
1% |
Determinations
|
|
Total |
|---|---|
|
Total |
4,232 |
|
Found in favour of complainant |
28% |
|
Found in favour of financial firm |
72% |
1 Average of days the complaint was active.
2 Complaints may belong to more than one product type.
3 This includes complaints resolved through Conciliation, Negotiation, Preliminary Assessment, or resolved by the financial firm
Complainants
Complaints received by state and territory
| State and territory |
Percentage |
|---|---|
|
New South Wales |
31% |
|
Queensland |
18% |
|
Northern Territory |
1% |
|
Western Australia |
8% |
|
South Australia |
6% |
|
Victoria |
27% |
|
ACT |
2% |
|
Tasmania |
1% |
|
Not provided |
7% |
|
Other countries |
1% |
- Top 10 languages (other than English) in which interpreters were requested
- Mandarin
- Taiwanese
- Arabic
- Cantonese
- Vietnamese
- Korean
- Persian (Farsi)
- Hindi
- Punjabi
- Spanish
- 2,523 complainants identified as First Nation peoples
- 1% of complainants required an interpretation service
- 9% of complainants had a representative
Gender of complainants
| Gender |
Percentage |
|---|---|
|
Male |
55% |
|
Female |
40% |
|
Other/Unknown |
5% |
Members
- 44,958 members
- 84% of members did not have a complaint lodged against them
Top five member types with the most complaints
|
Member type |
Total |
|---|---|
|
Banks |
36,668 |
|
General insurers |
22,113 |
|
Credit providers |
9,837 |
|
Superannuation fund trustee/advisers |
5,680 |
|
Life insurers |
3,567 |
Customer service
- 169,594 calls to our phone lines
Calls to our phone lines
|
Phone line |
Total |
|---|---|
|
Consumer and small business |
138,333 |
|
Membership |
17,192 |
|
Significant event hotline |
14,069 |
- Average wait time for calls 258 seconds
- Our service was provided in 72 languages other than English
- 29,381 online live chats
- 78% of complaints were lodged online
Systemic issues
- Identification and investigation of systemic issues resulting in remediation to 378,830 consumers
- $100,528,522.35 in refunds made to consumers
- 1,042 potential systemic issues identified
- 194 systemic issue investigations referred to financial firms
- 105 systemic issues reported to regulators
- 94 systemic issues resolved with financial firms
- 58 serious contraventions of the law and other breaches 1
- 14 possible serious contraventions of the law reported to regulators
1 Reported under section1052E(1)-(3) of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth)
