AFCA has published its Systemic Issues Insights Report for financial firms for the period between July and December 2023.

Between July and December 2023, AFCA identified and investigated 111 systemic issues.

Reports to regulators in the first half of financial year 23-24 included reports to ASIC, APRA and other regulators (such as OAIC, ATO) for the following sectors: Banking and finance, General insurance, Life insurance, Investments and advice, and Superannuation.

The systemic issues included the following:

Banking and finance
• Compliance with Regulatory Guide 271: Internal Dispute Resolution
• AFCA engagement: Collection activity during open AFCA complaints
• Dealing with third party representatives (Firm not accepting signed authority forms from other organisations)
• Failure of an automated system causing an error eg duplicate payments and delays for customer
payments
• Dealing with scams including elements of prevention, investigation, recovery
and communications

General insurance
• Dealing with third party representatives
• AFCA engagement: Collection activity during open AFCA complaints
• Policy interpretation

Life insurance
• Breach of policy terms

Investments and advice
• Processing error

Superannuation
• Adequacy of claims handling process
• Breach of obligations under SIS Act and SIS Regulations (Failure to process superannuation rollover requests on time)
• Cancellation of policies (Insurance cover incorrectly cancelled )

If you found this article helpful, then subscribe to our news emails to keep up to date and look at our video courses for in-depth training. Use the search box at the top right of this page or the categories list on the right hand side of this page to check for other articles on the same or related matters.