The head of Australia’s financial ombudsman service has expressed his “deep concern” that financial services companies are not meeting their dispute resolution obligations. Speaking at a member forum yesterday, Australian Financial Complaints Authority chief executive David Locke said that so far this financial year AFCA has received more than 60,000 complaints, with an average of 7500 a month. The monthly average in 2021/22 was 6000 complaints and in 2020/21 it was 5800 complaints. Locke said: “It is critical that we all do what we can to proactively address these challenges to support each other and consumers. Unfortunately, current complaint volumes suggest that more work needs to be done. “We are seeing a decline in performance by industry to address and resolve complaints before they reach AFCA. “Fewer complaints are being resolved after referral back to the financial firm, while more members are asking for extensions or not responding to complaints in the timeframes outlined.” Locke highlighted two areas of concern: complaints about insurance claims for natural disaster damage, and complaints related to scams and unauthorised transaction activity. The latest news on this front came from Latitude Financial, which reported yesterday that it had detected “unusual activity on its systems over the last few days that appears to be a sophisticated and malicious cyber-attack”.  It said the attacker appears to have used employee login credentials to steal information held by two of its service providers. Around 103,000 identification documents, mostly drivers’ licences, were stolen from one and 225,000 customer records from the other. Locke said: “The increase in scam activity is already putting pressure on members who are trying to protect and educate their customers. Addressing scams will not only be a significant investment of your time, it will require financial investment from all of us to find solutions that can minimise their impact.”