Pegasystems' New Credit Card Management Applications Make 'One-and-Done' Processing a Reality

Business Wire, Sept 21, 2004

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- PegaCARD Customer Process Manager and PegaCARD Smart Dispute Cut Costs And Improve Customer Relations with Rule-driven Business Process Management

Pegasystems Inc. (NASDAQ: PEGA), a leading provider of smart, rules-based business process management (BPM) software, today announced the release of PegaCARD Customer Process Manager(TM) and PegaCARD Smart Dispute(TM), card management applications that cut overhead costs and improve customer satisfaction by eliminating long waits to resolve simple procedures such as a lost card or charge dispute.

Customer Process Manager and Smart Dispute are the only card management applications that completely automate customer-facing processes from the point of contact through to resolution. Traditional card management applications address the needs of the customer service representative (CSR) and the back office separately. CSRs don't have the resources they need to fulfill service requests, and back-office staff re-enter customer data into their own systems. This two-tiered system is expensive for the card issuer and frustrating for the customer, who may be forced to wait several weeks to get their issue resolved. By linking CSRs with the back-end systems through Smart Dispute and Customer Process Manager, companies can resolve issues while the customer is on the phone rather than issuing a reference number to a case that will be resolved later.

Pegasystems customers such as US Bank have achieved one-and-done processing of their inbound dispute calls by non-specialist front-line agents, according to Gailen Veurink, SVP of Retail Payment Solutions at US Bank. With assets in excess of $189 billion, US Bank is the eighth largest financial services company in the United States. Veurink will be speaking on a panel moderated by Pegasystems at the ABA/Forward Financial Bank Card Conference in Orlando on September 21st, about how US Bank has achieved significant gains in customer satisfaction and productivity.

PegaCARD Customer Process Manager provides a unique intent-driven approach to customer service to help optimize customer interactions, automatically queuing business processes based on an organization's policies, as well as anticipated customer requests. PegaCARD Smart Dispute is Pegasystems' industry-leading solution for automation of the dispute and chargeback process, helping credit and debit card companies minimize unnecessary write-offs. The application provides issuers with best-practice processes and rules to ensure compliance with complex association dispute rules and regulations.

Build for change with new automation and international capabilities

PegaCARD Customer Process Manager and PegaCARD Smart Dispute are built on Pegasystems' industry leading Java-based smart BPM platform, PegaRULES Process Commander. They inherit the platform's unprecedented openness, scalability, ease of management and the ability to 'build for change,' - allowing business users to make changes to critical business processes and procedures from their desktops. In addition, both applications add several key new features.

Among Customer Process Manager's new features are:

--an interface that supports intent-driven processing;

--integrated cross- and up-sell functions;

--workflow templates that guide CSRs through processes and eliminate routine tasks.

Among Smart Dispute's new features are:

--multi-currency capabilities for international card issuers;

--multi-association capabilities for Visa, MasterCard and third-party issuers;

--a subscription service for automatically updating Visa and MasterCard regulations twice a year.

"Card management that depends on old-school technology is too manual and inefficient to support growth. Even when companies attract new users, the cost of serving them is prohibitive and the waits that customers endure contribute to churn," said Henry Ancona, Pegasystems' president and COO. "By releasing Smart Dispute and Customer Process Manager on the PegaRULES Process Commander platform, we're offering card issuers the tools to sweep away the old way of managing customer relationships, without sweeping away the investment they've made in technology systems."

Pricing and availability

Pegasystems will demonstrate Smart Dispute and Customer Process Manager at the ABA/Forward Financial Bank Card Conference in Orlando, which runs from September 19 to 21. PegaCARD Smart Dispute is available today; PegaCARD Customer Process Manager will be available shortly. Additional information, including pricing, is available from Pegasystems.

About Pegasystems

Pegasystems Inc. (NASDAQ: PEGA) provides rules-based, smart business process management (BPM) software to large organizations, helping to deliver significant ROI and providing them with the flexibility and agility to respond to changing business needs. The company offers applications for the financial services, healthcare, insurance and government markets, as well as a cross-industry BPM application. Pegasystems is headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., and has regional offices in North America, Europe and the Pacific Rim. For more information, visit www.pega.com.