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The number of complaints related to financial difficulty have declined over the last financial year, according to new preliminary AFCA data.
According to AFCA’s preliminary figures for the 2022 financial year, there were 72,358 complaints made to the complaints authority, marking a year-on-year rise of three per cent.
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Banks saw a lift in the number of complaints between the financial years, rising from 26,281 to 28,339 during the 12 month period.
This was the highest figure reported by a financial firm type.
Further, the big four banks accounted for 20,000 of this sum — a 10 per cent rise compared to the preceding year.
However, AFCA notes that while complaints may have increased as a whole, financial difficulty-related complaints sank over the period.
According to these figures, between the 2021–22 financial years, financial difficulty-related complaints fell by 14 per cent to 4,442.
AFCA’s chief ombudsman David Locke commented that this drop was the result of “the work that the banking sector has done to support consumers in recent years”.
“That’s really positive,” Mr Locke said.
“However, we’ll be working with industry and consumer groups as we monitor the impact of cost of living pressures and higher interest rates on financial services consumers in the coming year.”
The preliminary figures also note that home loan complaints remained relatively stable over the 12 month period, increasing from 6,400 to 6,439.
Further, the data reflects that complaints resolved at the registration and referral stage increased from 55 per cent to 58 per cent for the banking and finance sectors over the 2021–2022 financial year, while the percentage of complaints resolved by agreement remained at 74 per cent for the sector.
Broker complaints on downwards trend
In addition to these latest results, separate data from AFCA reflects a trend that complaints for mortgage brokers could also be on the downswing.
According to the AFCA Datacube, which reports financial firms that have received at least four complaints over a selected period between 2019 and 2022, the number of referenced brokerages declined.
During the final six months of 2021 (the latest data available on Datacube), just three broker groups were reported as receiving a collective total of 20 complaints.
Compared to the 2021 financial year, this latest figure reflects a significant drop. For example, from 1 July 2020 to 30 June 2021, there were a total of 89 received complaints across eight businesses.
Further, over the 2020 financial year, there were 117 received complaints for 12 broker groups.
The data also shows that, during the second half of the 2021 calendar year, four aggregators received a combined total of 32 complaints.
Over the 2020 financial year, this figure was 72 across five aggregators.
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