The Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) has launched a digital dispute management platform to allow financial services businesses to track any complaints against them and potentially reduce complaints in the future.
The authority announced the launch of the interactive Member Benchmarking Dashboard at its bi-annual member forum event last week, stating it was designed to provide almost instantaneous complaint data that is updated daily in order to resolve issues quickly.
AFCA chief executive and chief ombudsman David Locke said the system will assist financial services firms in reducing customer complaints in the long term.
“As an external dispute resolution provider, AFCA’s primary role is to resolve complaints. However, we also have a responsibility to encourage best practice so firms receive fewer complaints in the first place,” Locke said.
“Using the new dashboard, AFCA members can investigate the types of complaints they receive, how well they respond to disputes and how their performance compares to other firms in their industry.
“By providing members with greater data and insights, we hope to help financial firms improve customer service and minimise disputes.”
The tool will be available only to AFCA member firms and released in phases during November and December, while non-members and the public can access free public data about the authority’s complaint handling via the AFCA Datacube, which is updated twice a year.
