Adviser complaints fall to 2% in FY20

During a webinar as part of the FPA's Virtual Congress on Monday, AFCA chief executive and chief ombudsman David Locke revealed that of more than 84,500 complaints received by the ombudsman in the 2019-20 financial year, 1,332 related to the advice industry.

This amounted to around $26 million in compensation paid out to consumers that related to advice complaints.

The ombudsman said only 16.7 per cent of the 1,571 AFCA members in the advice industry had had complaints lodged against them in the 2020 financial year.

The majority of these complaints were around the appropriateness of advice, if the adviser had acted in the client’s best interests, fees and costs, failing to provide advice and misleading product or service information. 

Most complaints related to superannuation funds, mixed asset funds and SMSFs.

While the ombudsman had received a flood of consumer complaints related to COVID-19, only 16 of these related to advisers.

A spokesperson for AFCA said the ombudsman received "very few complaints" about advisers overall.