Pegasystems says its PegaBANKING Smart Adjust 4.1 release can automate payment exception handling for cheques, ACH payments, debit cards, ATMs and other retail areas. New features include the ability to process substitute cheques and automate handling of ACH disputes.
Pegasystems says Smart Adjust 4.1 has been built to help banks comply with the new Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act (or ‘Check 21’) regulations, by providing the capabilities necessary to handle substitute checks – as well as paper checks, check images, ACH and other electronic payment types.
“Banks today face enormous change in responding to Check 21, preparing for image exchange and supporting the escalating volumes of electronic payments,” says Robert Hunt, a Retail and Wholesale Banking analyst at leading advisory and consulting firm TowerGroup. “The real challenges lie in the disputes, exceptions and customer issues that arise with these changes. Banks need a single solution that manages exceptions for checks and electronic payments that is flexible enough to adapt to changing business needs, and which provides cross-department processing capability for effective management of all payment types.”
Check 21’s arrival and the growth of electronic payments are driving up exception management costs significantly, says Pegasystems. ACH network volume grew 21 per cent year over year in the second quarter of 2004, and ACH debit returns are projected to grow 18 percent from 2004 to 2005, according to NACHA – The Electronic Payments Association. Smart Adjust aims to keeps exception management costs under control, by automating manual work.
“The transaction exceptions that impose high operational costs and risks on financial institutions can often be quickly resolved when automated solutions are properly applied to the problem,” says Pegasystems CEO Alan Trefler. “We’ve added greater intelligence to Smart Adjust with each release, so that banks and service bureaus can handle a greater proportion of payment exceptions automatically and profit from the growing volume of electronic transactions.”