Candid Conversations: Dispute Management

We asked ProgressSoft’s Project Manager, Khaldoun Shanter, all about financial dispute management; from why the solution was created, to how it impacts the wider industry today.

Here are the interesting results.

1. What triggered the need for the creation of a Dispute Management solution?

Exchanged financial transactions between financial institutions through the central bank’s national payment systems may lead to dispute due to improper execution or authorization of a specific transaction, issues in delivery-versus-payment agreements, or any other discrepancy that may arise due to wrongful processing of transactions, technical and integration issues, or simply human error.

Such disputes raised by customers or financial institutions are currently being manually handled through means such as emails or phone calls, a costly and time-consuming assignment for both parties that leads to unclear tracking and late resolution of raised dispute cases, as well as loss of payment systems’ credibility, financial institutions’ integrity and ultimately, a major compromise in customer satisfaction.

Accordingly, we realized that such obstacles can be overcome through a core dispute management solution that provides a standalone platform for raising disputes pertaining to all financial institutions and emanating from all national payment systems. The solution controls dispute cases from entry to closure in one centralized system, communicates with financial institutions and shares relevant dispute case evidences to transform dispute management into an automated, digitized and accurate process.

2. Can you provide us with more details on how the solution works?

The Dispute Management solution is a flexible system that allows financial institutions to register a dispute related to financial transactions processed through the central bank’s national payment systems by simply submitting required evidences and transaction details in what we call the ‘dispute creation process’.

As the solution is seamlessly integrated with the national payment systems, it automatically retrieves the details of the disputed transaction and all facts submitted in the creation process, and then sends them to the receiving financial institution to either accept or reject the dispute case within a predefined timeframe. The process of acceptance or rejection can also be automated through a predefined Turnaround Time (TAT) expiration feature.

If the receiving financial institution rejected the dispute case, then the initiating financial institution can escalate the dispute to the central bank for oversight and interference in the final decision-making process and verdict. The solution ultimately generates the needed financial entries pertaining to the final dispute case verdict and settles them through the relevant financial channels via direct integration with the central bank’s national payment systems including Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS).

In addition, the central bank is able to configure dispute case management rules for each payment system, as well as define charges and penalties for delayed processing of dispute cases. All in all, the solution provides well-defined Service Level Agreements (SLAs), and well-defined and solid mechanisms to formally raise and arbitrate disputes.

3. How is the solution changing the industry?

One of the main goals influencing digital transformation initiatives is the improvement of customer experiences and satisfaction levels, and utilizing a dispute management system achieves this goal. Not only does it reduce customer inquiries and complaints, but it also massively enhances the integrity of the payment services being offered by the financial institution; a vital quality that can no longer be overlooked by any institution looking to successfully compete in the market.

A dispute management solution massively enhances trust between customers, financial institutions and the central bank by providing an automated and comprehensive solution to streamline, standardize, accelerate and simplify the dispute management process. In the meantime, it also does not compromise the controls that govern the dispute management process where in fact, it provides improved monitoring and control over dispute cases through statistical reports, dashboards and automated notifications.

Unprecedented enhancements in cashflows within national payment systems, time and cost efficiencies in financial institutions and most importantly, guaranteed customer satisfaction, makes a dispute management solution one we can anticipate to be hearing a lot more of in the near future.