The Afca will deal with a host of complaints against a range of financial firms; including insurance companies, financial advisers and superannuation trustees.
It will also operate with significantly higher monetary and compensation limits than are currently available.
The complaints body will replace the Financial Ombudsman Scheme (Fos), the Credit and Investments Ombudsman (CIO) and the Superannuation Complaints Tribunal (SCT).
Its operations will be overseen by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (Asic).
September deadline
All financial firms that are required to have a dispute resolution system to deal with complaints must become Afca members by 21 September 2018.
This includes trustees of regulated superannuation funds who are currently subject to the SCT.
However, the firms must also retain existing membership of the Fos and CIO scheme until further notice. This means that fees to these bodies must continue to be paid.
The SCT will continue to accept complaints until 31 October 2018. Any cases received before the 1 November 2018 will be handled by the SCT and not passed to the Afca.
There were no details on the Afca website about the costs associated with membership.
Next steps
The Afca will shortly consult on its rules and interim funding model.
