The Australian Financial Complaints Authority has recruited three new ombudsmen from the banking and insurance sectors, and promoted three others internally, as it starts another busy year. AFCA said it received about 70,000 complaints in 2020-21 and expects to handle at least that number again in the coming year.
The external hires into the banking and finance team at AFCA are:
• Louise McAuliffe, who has been head of legal in ANZ's dispute resolution group since 2015; and
• James Taylor, practice leader, business lending legal, Westpac, providing legal support for all project, policy, commercial and transactional aspects of the group’s Business Bank.
Both McAuliffe and Taylor will start in September in AFCA's Melbourne and Sydney offices, respectively.
David Short, currently head of legal, risk and compliance at business insurance service provider, BizCover, will join as an ombudsman in AFCA's insurance team at the end of August.
Internally, AFCA has promoted Vicki Carter and Mervyn Silverstein to ombudsman within its superannuation team, and Qasim Gilani to ombudsman in insurance.
Shail Singh has been reappointed as an ombudsman in investments and advice, and Christine McCarthy as an ombudsman in insurance. Daniel King has been promoted to an Adjudicator role in Insurance.
These appointments follow the naming of two new lead ombudsmen, for insurance and for small business, respectively, with Emma Curtis due to join from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and Suanne Russell from Westpac in early August.