In its latest update to its Datacube, the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) has revealed that from 1 July 2025 to 30 November 2025, InterPrac Financial Planning received the most complaints of any firm in the investments and advice sector at 628.
Complaints lodged during October and November (152) had showed a slowdown compared with the prior three months (472), though still ahead of any other financial advice business.
Adding in the 124 complaints lodged during the 2024-25 financial year, InterPrac has received 752 complaints in less than 18 months.
Financial Services Group Australia (FSGA), the licensee that was controlled by Ferras Merhi while he was also authorised by InterPrac, was second on the list for the first five months of 2025-26 at 144 complaints.
MWL Financial Services was next at 132, followed by United Global Capital (UGC) at 129 and Next Generation Advice at 39.
Importantly, UGC had previously seen its AFCA membership ceased on 31 May 2025, which meant it was unable to accept new complaints.
However, on 25 September last year the complaints authority announced it had reinstated the firm until March 2026 to allow more impacted clients to make complaints and receive compensation through the Compensation Scheme of Last Resort (CSLR).
Essentially, UGC has received those 129 complaints in just two months, and they are now added to the 600 prior complaints that AFCA had received related to the firm.
Among the 1,072 complaints lodged against these five licensees just eight had been resolved at referral.
Additionally, the bulk of the complaints didn’t even receive a response from the firm – though given most are no longer operational this should not be a shock.
More than just the advice firms
The super trustees involved have also seen a number of complaints, though it is unclear how many relate specifically to the Shield and First Guardian failures and it is not unusual for super trustees to receive complaints on other matters.
Equity Trustees leads the pack with 201 during the five-month period, followed by Diversa at 185, Netwealth at 74 and Macquarie Investment Management at 61.
Falcon Capital, which was the responsible entity for First Guardian, and Keystone Asset Management, Shield’s RE, received 79 and 20 complaints, respectively.
The numbers follow AFCA publishing lead decisions for multiple firms embroiled in the scandal, providing a blueprint for how the body will handle complaints related to MWL Financial Services, FSGA, UGC, and combined UGC and Next Generation Advice complaints.
“To ensure fairness and consistency, we’re grouping complaints by firm and progressing them in the order they were received within each group,” said lead ombudsman for investments and advice Shail Singh.
“Dedicated teams are focused on each firm, such as United Global Capital, Next Generation Advice, MWL, Financial Services Group Australia and InterPrac, so we can address the unique issues and themes that arise in each group.”
The lead decisions, he added, are determinations that the complaints authority has made on a complaint that is “representative of a group of similar complaints”.
“When we receive a large number of complaints with common facts or issues, we group them together and select a case that best represents the group we investigate decide that case first, and the outcome, called the lead decision, sets a clear direction for how similar complaints will be resolved,” Singh explained.
“This approach helps us resolve large numbers of similar complaints more efficiently and fairly, ensuring consistency for everyone involved.”
AFCA moved away from its usual process for publishing complaints statistics in October, deciding to update the numbers on a monthly basis rather than every six months.
“The change will provide more timely insights for consumers, small businesses, and financial firms,” AFCA said at the time.
“AFCA’s Datacube is an interactive public database of complaints about financial firms and includes all firms that received four or more complaints in the past 12 months. The information supports AFCA’s vision of an Australia free from financial disputes by sharing transparent and accessible data.
“It helps member firms benchmark their performance and enables consumers and small businesses to make informed choices about financial products and services.”
