New Workflows in Pega Smart Dispute Help Banks Handle the Evolving Payment Landscape

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – June 28, 2022 – Pegasystems Inc. (NASDAQ: PEGA), the software company that crushes business complexity, today announced new capabilities for Pega Smart Dispute™ for Issuers. This latest update to Pega’s merchant dispute and fraud claim application includes new workflows for resolving the increasing number of non-plastic claims along with expanded coverage for American Express and Zelle payment exceptions. 

Disruption in the payments market continues to rapidly accelerate with many new technology entrants, coupled with increasing instances of fraud. According to the most recent Capgemini World Payments Report, by 2025 more than 25% of the payment mix will be non-traditional.¹ Banks need a single solution to support dispute management for all payment types to help adapt to these changes and simplify claims management. These institutions also need flexibility to enable scalable operations while staying in compliance and delivering exceptional customer experiences. Banks that are unable to accommodate new payment types tend to resort to manual processes that can lead to major back-office inefficiencies, increased costs, and regulatory compliance violations.

Pega Smart Dispute is the only application built on an industry-leading low-code platform² that processes American Express, Visa, and Mastercard dispute rules, as well as new payment types such as Zelle out of the box. The new enhancements also include a Payment Exceptions Recovery (PER) workflow that can be configured in just weeks to automate the intake, processing, and resolution for other new payment types such as Venmo and Cash App -- providing faster time to value than other solutions currently in the market.³

Smart Dispute streamlines and automates merchandise disputes and fraud claims with:

• Guided processing of disputes across the customer lifecycle: Pega’s step-by-step guidance for customer dispute processing helps improve resolution speed for bank agents and customers while increasing first contact resolution rates and reducing errors. 
• Automatic updates for American Express, Visa, and Mastercard: New dispute rules, including integration to Visa VROL and Mastercard MCOM, are updated bi-annually to help keep merchants on top of the latest changes. 
• Regional compliance support SLAs for consumer protection regulations: This helps yield better compliance with less manual management for consumer protection regulations such as US – Reg E & Z, Canada C-86, and UK Section 75.
• Support for ACH and Zelle: With dedicated workflows and additional payment types, customers can benefit from a unified solution built on an extensible model workflow. 
• Enhanced automation features: From straight-through processing to task automation capabilities like correspondence, accounting, and case closure, Pega improves productivity and reduces delays associated with manual work. 

Pega Smart Dispute for Issuers governs payment dispute and exception processes throughout their lifecycle in all channels – managing all aspects of this unique moment of truth in banking. Retail banks and card issuers can simplify consumer dispute and fraud claim operations to increase efficiency, customer satisfaction, and compliance. 

Pega Smart Dispute is now generally available, and the PER workflow is available for download on Pega Marketplace starting today. For more information, visit: https://www.pega.com/industries/financial-services/smart-dispute. 

Quotes & Commentary:
“Pega Smart Dispute has been the global leader in dispute management for almost two decades,” said Steve Morgan, banking industry market lead, Pega. “With this latest release and our new Payment Exception Recovery (PER) workflow, clients can quickly adapt to handle exceptions from the latest payment types in the same trusted solution as traditional payments. This helps build more efficiencies to navigate the changing payment landscape while still delivering exceptional service to retain the trust and loyalty of customers.” 

Supporting Resources:

• Product background: Smart Dispute for Issuers landing page
• Press release: Nationwide Building Society Improves Member Experiences with Pega Smart Dispute
• Case study: Nationwide Building Society shortens dispute resolution time by 86%
• Blog post: Why Banks are using automation and straight-through processing to simplify credit and debit card fraud

1. Capgemini Research Institute, “World Payments Report 2021,” October 7, 2021
2. Forrester Research: The Forrester Wave™: “Digital Process Automation Software, Q4 2021,” Rob Koplowitz, with Chris Gardner, John Bratincevic, Stephen Powers, Sara Sjoblom, and Kara Hartig, December 14, 2021
3. Forrester Research: A Forrester Total Economic Impact™ Study Commissioned By Pega: “The Total Economic Impact™ Of Pega Platform For Low Code,” Casey Sirotnak and Sanitra Desai, March 2020