The Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) has appointed Dr June Smith as deputy chief ombudsman, and Evelyn Halls as lead ombudsman banking and finance.
Smith was an internal promotion having previously been previously lead ombudsman superannuation, advice, investments and life insurance.
Halls was promoted from being ombudsman banking and finance decisions, both appointments were effective from 29 July, 2019.
David Locke, AFCA chief executive and chief ombudsman, said Smith had a proven track record at AFCA and predecessor schemes.
“June has a wealth of financial sector experience and well-developed relationships with regulators, industry and consumer groups,” Locke said.
“June is well recognised for her work developing codes of practice to improve customer outcomes, along with her efforts in promoting professional standards and business ethics in the financial advice industry.”
Smith said fairness underpinned what the organisation does and one of her first tasks would be to oversee AFCA’s Fairness Project.
“Work has already commenced on a new Fairness Project to investigate how we can ensure AFCA decisions are made fairly and to identify a framework for confirming that complaints are consistently resolved in a way that is fair, efficient, timely and independent,” Smith said.
