Chartered Accountants ANZ, CPA Australia, the Financial Advice Association Australia (FAAA), the Institute of Public Accountants and the SMSF Association welcome the opportunity to provide feedback to AFCA in response to the Consultation paper on the proposed amendments to the AFCA Rules.

We offer the following feedback:

• Scams - we support the proposal that receiving banks can be held accountable where they have negligently facilitated the receipt and onward transfer of funds obtained as a result of the actions of a scammer.
• Paid Representatives - we support the proposed Rules amendments to force paid representatives to use approved AFCA processes and for AFCA to refuse to deal with a third party where they are not a member of AFCA, despite being required to be by their AFS licence. We also support the ability for AFCA to exclude a paid representative from the AFCA service where they have repeatedly failed to comply with the AFCA requirements.
• Financial Firm failure to comply with an AFCA Determination - we strongly support the addition on a new rule to enable AFCA to publicise the failure of Financial Firms to comply with AFCA Determinations.
• Legacy Complaints - whilst we note that AFCA is not seeking feedback on this proposal, we are happy to confirm that we believe that this is an appropriate amendment to the Rules in the context of the historical and out-of-date nature of the Legacy Complaints provisions.