New data released by the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) has shown that complaints about home loans increased by 20 per cent in the second half of 2019.
Chief Operating Officer at AFCA, Justin Untersteiner said it was disappointing to see the increase.
“Rebuilding trust in the Australian financial services will be a long journey and one that requires effort across the entire sector,” Mr Untersteiner said.
He said the data showed that between July and December last year the Financial Services Ombudsman received 2,201 complaints about home loans.
“There has been a dramatic increase in complaints about home loans,” Mr Untersteiner said.
“This increase has been driven by financial firms failing to respond to requests for assistance, the conversion of loans from interest only to principal and interest, and issues with responsible lending,” he said.
“The data also shows that we are getting very few complaints about financial advice, just 30 per month, and complaints against debt buyers or collectors rose by just five per cent.”
He said the most complained about product overall was credit cards, with 2,748 complaints received during the period reviewed.
He said the data had been made available to the public through AFCA’s Datacube as part of the Agency’s commitment to providing access to data in a transparent and useful way.
“Every six months, AFCA releases data which allows Australians to see how many complaints their insurer, bank, financial adviser, superannuation fund or other financial firm has received and how they have responded to those complaints,” Mr Untersteiner said.
“Our hope by releasing this data is that we see improvements and the industry takes action to reduce the number of complaints that end up at AFCA.”
AFCA’s report on its findings can be accessed at this PS News link.
