The Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) says the corporate regulator’s publication today of industry-wide data on internal complaints being received by financial firms provides a fuller picture of the consumer experience.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) publication, Insights from internal dispute resolution data reporting, shows 4.7 million individual complaints being made directly to firms in 2023-24.

General insurance products were subject to the most complaints (33% of all complaints), followed by credit products (22%) and deposit-taking products (15%), the ASIC data showed. Most complaints were about service (45%), followed by charges (22%) and transactions (11%).

“The publication of this data enhances transparency, giving us a fuller picture of consumer complaints in Australia and enhancing understanding of the complaints environment in financial services,” AFCA’s Chief Ombudsman, David Locke, said.

“We endorse ASIC’s message encouraging firms to foster a positive complaints management culture that delivers quality outcomes for consumers.”

Australia’s consumer protection framework means that consumers who have a concern can lodge a complaint directly with a financial firm, which generally has 30 days (or 45 days in the superannuation sector) to address it within their internal dispute resolution process.

If the consumer is unhappy with the handling or outcome of that internal complaint, they can then come to AFCA for free and independent external dispute resolution.

In 2023-24, a record of nearly 105,000 complaints were escalated to AFCA by consumers and small businesses. This was more than double the number of complaints to its three predecessor schemes in their final year before AFCA opened its doors six years ago.

The top issues in complaints to AFCA were unauthorised transactions, delay in insurance claim handling, disputes over insurance claim amounts, service quality, and ‘other’ types of scams.

AFCA makes its complaints data available via the publicly accessible AFCA Datacube and in its Annual Review.

Media enquiries: media@afca.org.au 

About AFCA 

The Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) is a non-government ombudsman service providing free, fair and independent dispute resolution to individual consumers and small businesses when they are not able to resolve complaints directly with financial firms in banking and finance, insurance, investments and advice, and superannuation. AFCA aims to help the parties reach agreement, but it can issue decisions that are binding on financial firms.