The Compliance team maintain the Complaints Register and have oversight of each complaint and its resolution.
Periodic training is conducted on dealing with complaints for relevant staff.
People are the key to the Licensee’s success. We offer a service, not a product orientated business.
If people are dissatisfied with the services and they let enough of their friends and colleagues know, the business reputation is affected, profits may decrease, and in the worst-case scenario, we may lose clients. We take all complaints seriously and aim to resolve all complaints in a fair and timely fashion.
Legislation governing the provision of the services gives retail clients rights to have their complaints considered by external complaints resolution schemes if the complaint cannot be dealt with satisfactorily internally.
This policy provides guidance to the Licensee and their clients on the interpretation and application of dealing with client complaints in accordance with the AS/NZS 10002:2014 – Customer satisfaction – Guidelines for complaints management in organisations.
We must maintain our membership with the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA). ASIC has the power to take action against us if this membership is not current. Any action brought against us for failing to maintain a membership with AFCA is likely to result in a breach.
We must ensure we have sufficiently disclosed our investors options for making complaints to us directly, or through AFCA.
A complaint may go through our internal dispute resolution system but remain unsolved or may not be resolved within the appropriate internal dispute resolution timeframe. In this instance, we must:
More broadly, our complaint management policy, website and telephone scripting also inform complainants of AFCA’s contact details and the complainants’ right to take their complaint to AFCA if they are dissatisfied.
The above Standard defines a complaint as:
“An expression of dissatisfaction made to or about an organization, related to its products, services, staff or the handling of a complaint, where a response or resolution is explicitly or implicitly expected or legally required”.
Complaints can be made verbally or in writing. All complaints should be treated the same. The steps for processing complaints are listed below.
It is important that all complaints are properly recorded at the outset so that we can monitor their progress and collect statistical information. Each complaint should be recorded separately in the Complaints Register and followed up as appropriate and monitored to ensure the client remains satisfied as well as receiving feedback.
Verbal complaints must also be supported by a file note of your factual conversations with the client. File notes must contain facts only and should not be emotive or judgemental in nature.
Our role is to immediately inform the Compliance Officer of the complaint.
Australian Financial Complaints Authority Limited
GPO Box 3
Melbourne, VIC 3001
Telephone: 1800 931 678
Facsimile (03) 9613 6399
Web: https://www.afca.org.au
