Pitched as the "one-stop-shop for financial dispute resolution," the Australian Financial Complaints Authority has started its first month of operations strongly turning enquiries into complaints and finalising many of those complaints rapidly. Since opening its doors on 1 November this year, AFCA has already fielded more than 13,000 phone calls and received 6,522 complaints about financial products or services from consumers and small businesses. This represented an increase of almost 50 per cent (47 per cent) compared to AFCA's three predecessor schemes: the Financial Ombudsman Service, the Credit and Investments Ombudsman and the Superannuation Complaints Tribunal.AFCA's chief executive and chief ombudsman, David Locke, said 15 per cent of the complaints received in the month of November have already been finalised."This number of calls and complaints is on par with what we were expecting," said Locke.Most of the complaints AFCA has received to date have been about credit (45 per cent), followed by general insurance (21 per cent) and deposit taking (10 per cent). Eight per cent of complaints received were about superannuation. While most complaints were lodged by individual consumers, 460 complaints were lodged by small businesses.The most complained provider types were banks, with 2,367 complaints, followed by general insurers (1,159 complaints) and credit providers (1,040 complaints). Some of the most common reasons for complaints to AFCA include denial of insurance claims and responsible lending. Service issues, such as service quality, delays in claim handling or delays in complaint handling are the next most common issues.Locke said AFCA is currently investigating 84 definite systemic issues and four potentially serious contraventions among other breaches. Some of these are likely to be referred to the appropriate regulator, he said.