Copper State CU Improves Reg E Process By Automating Payment Disputes

The Challenge

Copper State Credit Union was formed from a merger of two regional credit unions based in the Phoenix, Arizona area. The combined memberships resulted in a natural doubling in payment dispute volume that quickly overloaded the back office team. The credit union operations management team was looking for a more efficient, automated solution that would specifically address Reg E compliance requirements and work well with their online banking partner, Alkami.

Copper State CU’s payment dispute process was manual, with team members using PDF files grouped and labeled to identify the next required compliance processing action, i.e., crediting, keying of incomplete information and applying chargebacks. Everything was kept in separate folders and required crediting and letter notifications to be manually created and sent. The operations management team believed an automated payment dispute solution could address many of these manual steps. Donna Howard, VP of Card Services and her team began the search for the best solution for Copper State CU.

The Solution

Copper State CU chose FINBOA’s Payment Dispute solution to address demands for an automated solution to Reg E compliant payment dispute handling. With FINBOA Payment Disputes, the entire dispute process can be handled from beginning to end with automated alerts, letter templates, e-Signature capture, calculation of provisional credit and GL integration. Provisional credits can be issued on the same-day members initiate the payment dispute claim.

FINBOA Payment Disputes offers a compliant, intelligent automation solution that provides a simplified, efficient payment dispute process for financial institutions struggling to manage a growing volume of payment disputes. The solution addresses each step of the payment dispute process and automates repetitive processes, provides alerts and reporting that greatly improves compliance outcomes related to Reg E.

Impact to Copper State CU Back Office

Copper State CU’s back-office staff was able to shift the time-consuming manual tasks to the FINBOA Payment Dispute automation solution and eliminate hours of work devoted to tracking, processing claims and generating compliance-based notifications. This has freed the back office Card Specialists to focus on processing claims faster. 

According to Donna Howard, VP Card Services, “With FINBOA, tracking and reporting is effortless. Training is much easier with FINBOA. Our Solution Center is now handling the intake of more than 70% of our claims. With this shift in responsibility our back office Card Specialists can focus on processing the claims quicker.” 

Prior to FINBOA, Copper State CU back office workers were very involved in dispute claim intake. With FINBOA smart forms, the intake process is digitized and can be effectively handled by the Solution Center, which captures 70% of all incoming dispute claims. This has dramatically freed up time for back office workers that was previously spent interviewing members to input the information manually. 

The Solution Center can now handle the majority of the payment dispute claim intake. Howard says, “That's been a huge success for us to have more time to spend, because obviously card fraud is on the rise. We need more specialists that are actually processing the chargebacks versus intaking disputes.”

Favorite features noted by the Copper State CU team include FINBOA’s alerts, dispute tracking and multi-user functionality. As Howard, VP Card Services describes, “The FINBOA alert function and having the automated GL updates was very helpful. The customized letter templates have the various workflow rules embedded in the automation which minimizes regulatory training.”

FINBOA’s alert feature provides deadline alerts through email and online portals to assist the Lead Card Specialist in keeping track of which claims need more investigation, versus those that can be automatically handled so the team is not missing these cases. 

“FINBOA provides automated generation of general ledger and member transactions with the ability to create reversals as needed. We have integrated workflows and letters based on the claim type.  All of these processes were being done manually prior to our implementation of FINBOA.” - VP Card Services

Overall Results with FINBOA Payment Disputes

According to Howard, VP Card Services, “FINBOA offered a simple solution that encompassed automation, multi-user functionality, and dispute tracking for various case types, to deliver comprehensive and user-friendly functionality for quick, compliant Reg E dispute resolution. In addition, FINBOA stood out from other vendors as being more flexible and working well with Alkami on claims intake through mobile and online banking.” 

Howard also noted the attentive support received from the FINBOA implementation team, “The FINBOA implementation team was readily available, patient with the hurdles we faced and worked quickly to address issues we encountered.”

“FINBOA’s customer support team is superior. They value our time, are attentive to our needs, provide prompt follow-up, are knowledgeable, aim to please and are always professional. They listen to our recommendations and take action when there is a business need.” - Donna Howard, VP of Card Services Copper State Credit Union.