What Australians complain to AFCA about, and how to fix it at the source
Most credit complaints have a handful of causes. Few need a new law; most need rules that exist to be carried out.
General information, not legal or financial advice.
AFCA received 119,949 complaints in 2025–26, a record and the third year above 100,000. Banking and finance, where every credit complaint sits, rose 23% to 66,971 (AFCA, 4 August 2026, preliminary).
What people complain about
Complaints received, banking and finance, by financial year (AFCA Annual Review 2024–25). Categories overlap: a scam can also be an unauthorised transaction.
| Product or issue | 2020–21 | 2022–23 | 2023–24 | 2024–25 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Credit cards | 9,903 | 10,555 | 11,913 | 10,580 |
| Home loans | 6,400 | 7,096 | 6,963 | 5,818 |
| Personal loans | 5,343 | 6,524 | 7,737 | 5,709 |
| Scams | 2,370 | 5,973 | 10,932 | 5,879 |
| Unauthorised transactions | 4,878 | 10,614 | 12,505 | 5,365 |
| Incorrect fees or costs | 2,480 | 2,561 | 2,953 | 3,601 |
| Hardship request not answered | 2,825 | 2,907 | 2,854 | 2,823 |
- Credit reporting: 7,200 to 7,900 complaints a year from 2020–21 to 2023–24, default listings the largest part, and up 22% in 2025–26. AFCA told the 2024 review that most are made against the lender, not the bureau, and that 16 systemic issues in three years affected 270,000 people, mostly from failures to update or validate data (Review of Australia’s Credit Reporting Framework; AFCA).
- Hardship: 4,764 complaints in 2024–25, down 17%, then up 17% in 2025–26. Only 42% settled when AFCA first referred them back to the firm, against 59% for banking and finance as a whole (AFCA).
- Buy now pay later: 2,099 complaints in 2024–25, up from 1,668 two years before, mostly before it became regulated credit on 10 June 2025 (AFCA).
- Inside firms: firms reported more than 4.7 million complaints of their own in 2023–24, 22% of them about credit and 45% about service (ASIC REP 801). AFCA sees a small share.
The cause of each, and the fix that works
For each, we asked what already exists, what was tried and whether it moved the numbers (AFCA; ASIC REP 815; ASIC REP 805; UK Payment Systems Regulator).
| Complaint | Root cause | Best fix | Kind | Who |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scams | Instant, irrevocable payments; easy mule accounts; the customer bears the loss once they press “pay” | Finish the scam codes: duties on banks, telcos and platforms, a liability split, quick repayment of small losses; Confirmation of Payee everywhere | Law, then technology | Treasury, ACCC, ASIC, ACMA; banks |
| Hardship not answered | Requests missed in chat, calls and collections; documents asked for by default; automated declines | Recognise a request in any channel, decide within 21 days, a person reviews every decline | Practice and enforcement | Each lender; ASIC |
| Credit reporting errors | Lenders’ data not updated or validated; a $150 default threshold; enquiries kept five years; no single place to correct | A higher threshold, two-year enquiries, set correction times, one corrections portal; monthly reconciliation by lenders | Regulation and law | Treasury, OAIC; industry; lenders |
| Unauthorised transactions | SMS codes intercepted; a voluntary ePayments Code; “authorised” decided case by case | A mandatory, modern ePayments Code; no SMS code as the only check for risky actions | Regulation | Parliament, Treasury, ASIC; firms |
| Unsuitable lending | Bank statements collected but not read; joint borrowers not each spoken to | Read the statements: dishonours and negative balances stop an automatic approval; speak to each borrower | Practice and enforcement | Lenders, brokers; ASIC |
| Incorrect fees | Fee engines out of step with contracts; fees charged during hardship | Reconcile fee engines to contracts; warn before a fee; none while a hardship request is open | Practice | Each firm |
| Service and complaint handling | Dissatisfaction not logged as a complaint; front-line staff unable to settle | Log every expression of dissatisfaction; let staff settle small amounts; ASIC tests firms’ complaint data | Practice and regulation | Each firm; ASIC |
| Collections and default | Hardship disclosed to a collector and not acted on; debts sold while a customer is vulnerable | Pause collection and sale on disclosure; carry the bank code’s sale limits to non-banks; refresh the 2021 guideline | Enforcement and guidance | ASIC, ACCC; creditors |
Law, regulation or awareness?
New law where the loss has no owner. Scams are the clearest case: before 2023 the major banks repaid about 2% to 5% of scam losses (ASIC REP 761). Scam complaints fell 46% in 2024–25 as banks added warnings and holds, though no one has shown the one caused the other, and rose 12% in 2025–26. In the UK, mandatory reimbursement from October 2024 returned 88% of money claimed, against 66% a year before, with most claims settled within five days; the regulator warns the two are not measured alike (PSR). Australia’s Scams Prevention Framework Act 2025 is law; its sector codes are still drafts, and banks, telcos and platforms must comply by 31 March 2027 (Treasury).
Regulation where the rule is out of date. The $150 default threshold dates from 2014. The 2024 review recommended $300 or more, enquiries kept two years rather than five, set correction times and a single corrections portal (Recommendations 4, 5, 13 and 16). We found no government response. The ePayments Code is still voluntary; the payments licensing reforms would let it be made mandatory (Treasury).
Enforcement where the rule is fine. The 21-day hardship deadline has been law for years (National Credit Code s 72), yet unanswered requests have stayed near 2,800 a year. The change came after ASIC published the gaps and went to court: after its 2024 review, lenders identified 58% more hardship notices and one lender cut the share of customers who gave up from 60% to 35% (REP 815).
A narrow fix moves the problem. After the 2023 small amount credit reforms, lending shifted to loans of $2,000 to $2,500 just above the cap, their share rising from about 10% to over 30% in six months, with missed repayments rising on them too (ASIC REP 805). A cap without an enforced anti-avoidance rule redirects the harm.
Awareness alone does little. Campaigns help at the margin, but criminals adapt faster than messages travel, and no published evaluation shows a campaign reducing complaints on its own. They belong beside a rule, not instead of one.
How to put it in place
- Government: finalise the scam codes with a published table of who bears which share of a loss; answer the credit reporting review; raise the default threshold and shorten enquiry retention by regulation, the quickest route.
- ASIC: require hardship data from every lender above a size threshold — notices, days to decide, drop-out, re-default — and publish it by lender; test the quality of firms’ complaint data.
- AFCA: report the share of each firm’s complaints that settle as soon as they are referred back. A complaint that settles then could have been settled before it reached AFCA.
- Industry: one corrections portal across the bureaus; Confirmation of Payee on every account and channel.
- Each lender: the list below.
What a lender can do now
- Treat any request for help as a hardship notice, in any channel; ask only for information you will use; decide within 21 days, aiming for seven.
- Hold fees, collections and default listings while a request is open; contact the customer before an arrangement ends (REP 815).
- Reconcile what you reported to each bureau with what it holds, every month, and correct in days.
- Read the bank statements you collect before you approve; speak to each joint borrower.
- Never raise a limit automatically; warn before a fee.
- Log every expression of dissatisfaction as a complaint, and review your complaint codes monthly: one miscoded status sent 228 wrong hardship declines at one lender (AFCA systemic issues).
The 2025–26 figures are AFCA’s preliminary release; its full annual review was not out on 10 October 2026. AFCA publishes no count of responsible lending complaints.
Sources
- AFCA, Record complaints mark third consecutive year above 100,000 (4 August 2026, preliminary data).
- AFCA, Annual Review 2024–25: banking and finance, financial difficulty, buy now pay later, scams and systemic issues.
- Treasury, Review of Australia’s Credit Reporting Framework, final report (September 2024), with AFCA’s data.
- ASIC, REP 801 Internal dispute resolution data (3 December 2024).
- ASIC, REP 761 Scam prevention, detection and response by the four major banks (20 April 2023).
- ASIC, REP 782 Hardship, hard to get help (20 May 2024) and REP 815 Hardship, not as hard to get help (25 September 2025).
- ASIC, REP 805 Falling short: small amount credit contract obligations (13 March 2025).
- ASIC, RG 271 Internal dispute resolution (2 September 2021) and the ePayments Code.
- Scams Prevention Framework Act 2025; Treasury, scams codes and rules consultation (May–June 2026) and payments licensing reforms (updated 12 March 2026).
- National Credit Code, s 72.
- UK Payment Systems Regulator, One year on: impact of APP reimbursement on victims (October 2025).