The financial sector dispute resolution body, the Australian Financial Complaints Authority has just announced that it has created the role of senior ombudsman.
AFCA has already appointed seven staff to the role, each of which will report to the lead ombudsman – James Taylor from Westpac or Louise McAuliffe from ANZ for the Banking and Finance sector. The role of senior ombudsmen, life insurance went to Andrew Weinmann and that of general insurance went to Chris Liamos.
In a statement AFCA said that the new role was “to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of its dispute resolution work.”
“They’ll bring their specialist technical and professional expertise to bear on projects aimed at efficient and consistent decision making, which we know is important to both complainants and financial firms.”
The latest additions mean that AFCA will now boast over 80 ombudsmen and adjudication panel members.
In the period from July last year to the end of this June, AFCA received over 70,500 complaints, and closed nearly 74,000, awarding over $240million in compensation and refunds.
Of the 1,706 licenced members who were complained about, 40% were categorized as being in the credit industry. General insurance complaints were 24% and 13,896 complaints total.
