The Australian Financial Complaints Authority has rolled out a tool for consumers to see how their insurer, bank, financial adviser, superannuation fund or other financial firm has responded to consumer complaints.
The Datacube was introduced to “increase transparency and consumer education”.
It includes information about the number of complaints received, how long it takes each member firm to resolve complaints and the number of times financial firms did not respond to a complaint.
The tool also allows people to compare financial firms side-by-side.
For financial firms, they can clearly see how they are at handling complaints and how this compares to others in the market.
Deeper level of detail
David Locke, AFCA chief executive and chief ombudsman, said: “This tool provides a much deeper level of detail about the issues and products that consumers and small businesses are complaining to us about.
“All Ombudsman schemes are required to publish data on the complaints that they handle and AFCA is no different.
“This tool though presents AFCA’s data in a way that is more accessible and easier to understand and interrogate.
“AFCA will be rolling out many data and feature enhancements over the coming months.
“We are committed to working with consumers, small business and industry to resolve and reduce financial disputes through innovative solutions, education and communication initiatives such as these.”
Regulatory interaction
AFCA is required by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (Asic) to publish information about the complaints it receives and resolves including by financial firm name, and to ensure it is comparable by business size and industry sector.
The Datacube contains AFCA’s data between 1 November 2019 and 30 June 2019 and will be updated every six months.
“We want to allow both consumers and our members access to the most recent data possible and are working to release the next update to this tool in January 2020,” Locke added.
