The Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) said it had received 7 per cent fewer complaints from consumers about Australia’s big four banks during the 2020–21 financial year.

In its latest annual review, AFCA reported that complaints about banking and finance made up 60 per cent of the 70,510 total complaints it had received in 2020–21.

“While we know there are challenges ahead in the coming months across the board, I hope all firms and customers continue to do what they’ve been doing — firms actively engaging with customers they think may be struggling, and customers talking to firms before a small problem becomes a bigger one,” said David Locke, chief ombudsman and CEO at AFCA.

Data from AFCA’s Datacube indicated that complaints about the big four banks totalled 17,593 in 2020–21 compared to 18,817 in 2019–20. Complaints about the Commonwealth Bank fell from 6,580 in 2019–20 to 5,815 in 2020–21, while complaints about ANZ fell from 4,627 to 4,112 and complaints about NAB fell from 4,258 to 4,114.

A slight increase in the number of complaints about Westpac was reported, rising from 3,352 in 2019–20 to 3,542 in 2020–21.

AFCA reported that 56 per cent of the complaints it had received were resolved in less than two months, and 90 per cent were resolved within six months.

“This result demonstrates that AFCA is achieving its purpose in being faster and cheaper for consumers and firms compared to an alternative such as a court or tribunal,” Mr Locke said.

While banking and finance made up the majority of complaints received by AFCA, 24 per cent of complaints were related to general insurance, 7 per cent were about superannuation, 6 per cent were about investment and advice, and 2 per cent were about life insurance.

The product that was the subject of the most complaints was credit cards with 9,903 complaints received by AFCA, followed by 6,400 complaints about home loans and 5,758 about personal transaction accounts.

Service quality was found to be the biggest issue reported by complainants with a total of 6,880 complaints, followed by 5,048 reports of unauthorised transactions and 4,773 complaints about delay in claim handling.

A total of more than 216,000 complaints have been received by AFCA since it was established in November 2018.