While the size of the year-on-year increase has decreased, complaints to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) are “still too numerous”.
This is the verdict of AFCA CEO and Chief Ombudsman, David Locke, in commenting on the record 105,454 complaints lodged by his office in 2023-24.
Scams, everyday banking products and insurance were top consumer complaints.
It was enough for AFCA to express disappointment at the increase of just over 105,000 complaints in 2023-24. This followed an unprecedented 34% increase in complaints recorded a year earlier.
Locke called on companies to do more to resolve disputes themselves before they are brought to the AFCA’s attention.
“We continue to take measures so we can keep up with the growing demand for our service, but it is in everyone’s best interests that increasing complaints are addressed at the source,” he said.
The snapshot of preliminary data showed that scams were a key factor, along with an increase in complaints about comprehensive motor vehicle insurance, which contributed to a record number of complaints in the banking, finance and general insurance sectors.
Bank complaints rose 11% to 59,636 and general insurance complaints rose 4% to 29,096. Among basic banking products, complaints about online accounts increased by 33%, personal transaction accounts by 19% and credit cards by 12%.
Complaints about scams increased 81% to 10,951 in 2023-24, averaging 913 per month compared to 504 per month in the previous financial year.
“We saw a slight decline in scam complaints towards the end of the year, perhaps reflecting recent government and industry efforts to prevent and address scams,” Locke said. Our hope is that this improvement will continue into next year.”
The AFCA hopes that federal government action, including mandatory codes, will impose clearer obligations and help it resolve complaints about how a financial company handled the aftermath of a scam.
