To make a complaint online, you will need to create an AFCA portal account. This will only take a few minutes. Once you have an account, you can complete the online complaint form and manage your complaint throughout the AFCA process.
What is a portal and how does it work?
An online portal is like a digital front door to a specific set of information or services on the internet. In AFCA’s portal, this information may include the details of your complaint, such as the information or documentation shared by you and the financial firm and copies of letters AFCA has sent you.
The AFCA portal is linked to AFCA’s IT systems so you can share documents, make requests for information, and ask AFCA questions online in real-time, instead of using email or phone.
What can I do and see in the portal?
- Ability to make a complaint online or save a draft complaint if you are not ready to submit your complaint to AFCA.
- Live notifications of activity on your complaint.
- Real-time details about the status of your complaint, such as what stage of the AFCA process it is in.
- Ability to upload and automatically share complaint documents with all parties.
- Quicker and more transparent communication channel, removing the need for emails between you, AFCA, and your financial firm.
- Ability to raise a request (like a question) for AFCA or your financial firm to review.
- Ability to see information AFCA requests from you and due dates for responses.
- Ability to provide AFCA with feedback about the service it provided.
- New case number format – find out more here.
What’s in the portal?
- Homepage with access to quick links and resources.
- A view of your complaint details and the status of your complaint.
- Notifications for actions you may need to take – like responding to a request for more information.
- Online complaint form to make new complaints.
- Financial firm search function to find the details of the organisation you wish to make a complaint about (such as your bank).
- Search published decisions function to find previous AFCA decisions.
Accessibility
The AFCA portal is not mandatory. Anyone needing help, or who is unable to access the portal, can continue to lodge complaints by email or phone.
I have an existing complaint; do I need to create an account?
Depending on the stage of your complaint, we may email you in July inviting you to create a portal account. You will need to use the email address you provided when you lodged your complaint for your account to show your existing case.
While the portal is not mandatory, we encourage you to use it to manage your complaint if you can. It will make the AFCA process more efficient, timely, and transparent.
If you cannot create an account or cannot access the portal, you can continue to communicate with AFCA via email and/or phone.
I want to make a new complaint; do I need to create an account?
If you choose to make a complaint using our online complaint form, you will need to create a portal account.
Once you complete the online complaint form and create your account, you will be able to track the progress of your complaint, communicate with AFCA and share documents, from the portal.
You can also make a complaint by email, phone, or in writing/post.
Changes to AFCA case numbers from 17 June 2024
If you have an existing complaint with AFCA and an existing case number (this is the six-or-more digit case number provided to you when you made your complaint), your case number will look slightly different in the portal. From Monday 17 June, it will also include a ‘12-00’ prefix.
For example, if your case number is ‘123456’, it will change to ‘12-00-123456’.
You can still refer to your original case number when asked to provide it by AFCA.
Additional resources
You can access a range of learning material such as how-to guides and short video tutorials here.
Want to know more?
If you have a question about the AFCA portal, you can email info@afca.org.au.
Please note, we are currently experiencing a high number of emails. We ask for your cooperation and patience as we work to process requests and answer queries as quickly as we can.
Privacy Policy
Privacy matters to us and we know it matters to you. We take people’s privacy very seriously and it is essential to us that we look after and secure information that we collect. Our primary purpose in collecting any personal information, as defined in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and referred to in Sections 2.3 and 4 of the privacy policy, is to resolve financial complaints that are lodged with us.
Please review our Privacy Policy for detailed information on how we handle your personal information and data, including in the portal.
