Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) chief ombudsman David Locke has reflected on the dispute resolution organisation’s growth over the years.
In a speech delivered to AFCA's Member Forum held this week, Locke looked back on the company's establishment, purpose, and milestones over the years.
Since its establishment in 2018, AFCA has handled over 400,000 complaints from consumers and small businesses across Australia and has worked with over 4,000 financial firms to address complaints that were unable to be resolved before reaching the dispute resolution company. In the last financial year, AFCA received almost 100,000 complaints.
“I thank our members for their work to resolve these issues and the actions they took to remediate their customers,” 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% of financial service provider members had complaints raised with AFCA.
“Of course, resolving disputes is not all we have achieved. Because of our proactive and collaborative engagement with industry – and our members' receptive approach – we have seen many of our members improve practices and embed new processes to ensure fewer complaints occur or are escalated to AFCA in the first place.”
AFCA has seen the number of insurance complaints increase since 2018 mainly due to “business as usual” insurance claims.
“In response, we have been working closely with our insurance members to encourage earlier resolution. We regularly provide feedback, including our concerns about where we think performance can be improved,” Locke said. “Promisingly, these conversations are beginning to lead to positive outcomes with some insurers. But all need to really step up and do so now. We look forward to supporting the sector to address these challenges over the coming year.”
Moving forward, AFCA aims to complete its IT transformation project to deliver better experience to its people, consumers, and members.
See the rest of Locke's speech and his insights on AFCA's journey on the AFCA website.
