The Financial Ombudsman Service Australia received record numbers of disputes in 2016-17, according to new data published yesterday. The Annual Review shows that FOS received 39,479 disputes, a 16 per cent increase from last year, after a seven per cent increase the previous year. FOS commentary indicates the increase came about through continued growth in general insurance disputes. The number of general insurance disputes received (13,200) increased by 2,612, accounting for about 38 per cent of the overall increase.FOS said the increase in general insurance disputes was due to a continuation of industry-specific issues including higher claim numbers, organisational changes and the impact of Cyclone Debbie in Queensland, all of which may have affected insurers' internal dispute resolution.Overall, FOS accepted 22,475 disputes in 2016-17. Of these, there were:  •    10,973 credit disputes (43 per cent)•    8,756 general insurance disputes (35 per cent)•    1,861 deposit-taking disputes (seven per cent)•    1,331 payment system disputes (five per cent)•    1,292 investments and advice disputes (five per cent)•    1,018 life insurance disputes (four per cent)Among the credit disputes, one-third (33 per cent) involved credit cards, one-quarter (24 per cent) involved home loans and one-fifth (19 per cent) were about personal loans. Some 10,464 disputes - or 41 per cent of all disputes FOS accepted - involved banks. This was a slightly lower proportion than in 2015-16. Disputes involving banks were mainly about FSP decisions (23 per cent) and financial difficulty (20 per cent).FOS is looking for ways to speed up the process.  "With many of the disputes being resolved at registration stage the question could be asked 'why weren't these ones resolved even sooner than at that point?'" said Philip Field, lead ombudsman, banking and finance, at FOS."With mortgage stress levels already heading upwards, a couple of interest rate rises is likely to make things more difficult for borrowers. One thing banks can do is make sure that have robust systems in place to make sure these disputes to get resolved," he said."Some of the disputes may not have gone to the bank's own dispute resolution department so the right people might not have dealt with it."We do raise that question with the banks ... finding opportunities to deal with disputes earlier."A key focus again this year was on systemic issues. FOS identified and referred 192 possible systemic issues to FSPs for response and resolved 66 definite systemic issues. FSPs said more than 940,000 customers were affected by these systemic issues, leading to significant refunds and other remedies such as amendments to, or removal of, credit listings. Among the investments and advice disputes, the main issue was inappropriate advice (24 per cent).