Fin-Force, a third-party white-label processor of payments and cheques on behalf of European banks, has chosen Smart Investigate for Payments from Pegasystems to automate its investigation processes for payments and cheques.
The organisation says it will use Pegasystems' solution to increase the straight-through processing (STP) rates of investigations, thereby reducing operational expenses, while also providing multi-channel, real-time service, including Web-based self-service, to its financial institution customers.
Brussels-based Fin-Force, originally set up as an autonomous division of KBC Group in response to increasing competition in the European payments industry, is today a fully independent company, with additional shareholders such as DZ Bank and Rabobank and new customers including CBC, KBC Netherlands, KBC London, Rabobank, Equens and a number of Central European banks. "As we are expanding, we recognised the need to put in place the latest best-practice investigations processes," says Eddy Bex, chief acquisition officer, Fin-Force."Because Smart Investigate for Payments is certified by Swift for SwiftNet Exceptions and Investigations (E&I), it gives us the opportunity to participate in the E&I initiative in the future without additional investment."
Smart Investigate for Payments is built on the SmartBPMT Suite, Pegasystems' rules-driven business process management (BPM) software suite.
Bex says Fin-Force is now better placed to help banks deal with the commercial pressures driven by the single euro payments area (Sepa) and the trend for greater inclusion of corporates on payment networks such as Swift.
"By assisting in meeting these unprecedented financial pressures, Fin-Force enables banks to take advantage of the cost savings offered by infrastructure pooling," he says. "And using Smart Investigate for Payments helps provide better, more personalised customer service, for example by enabling corporate customers to initiate an investigation themselves and monitor its progress through to resolution."
Fin-Force says the project included the successful integration of seven years' legacy data. The system is now live with KBC, CBC and Equens, was implemented on-budget and will be rolled out to other customers over the next 12 months.