ASIC has announced that it has approved changes to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) Rules to allow the scheme to name financial firms in published determinations.

While determinations have been published by AFCA’s predecessor external dispute resolution schemes, the names of firms involved in financial services, superannuation and credit complaints have not been published to date.

Consumers who are a party to a complaint will continue to be anonymised in all determinations.

To support the new Rules, AFCA will shortly be issuing updated operational guidelines which set out examples of the circumstances in which a determination naming a financial firm would not be published. This includes where naming may expose confidential information about a firm’s systems or policies.

UPDATE: The Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) Rules and Operational Guidelines have been updated to allow AFCA to name financial firms in determinations that are issued and published from 1 October 2019.