Why institutions run dispute operations on the Lean engine
Dispute volume rises with e-commerce and real-time payments. Network rules change on the networks' own cycle. Headcount moves with neither. Lean has spent twenty years on that one problem, with people who have run dispute desks.
Built and run by people who have worked a dispute desk.
Lean has worked one problem since 2005: disputed payments. Several of the people who run implementations, production support and quality ran dispute departments before they built software for them, and they are who a client works with from requirements through go-live and after. Twenty years of reason-code changes, network rule revisions and edge cases are already in the workflow.
Mechanism One team from requirements through go-live and after, and twenty years of dispute handling already in the workflow.
Built for a desk that runs more than one network.
The payment networks are building dispute platforms of their own, each under its own network's rules. A dispute desk rarely answers to one network. Card, debit, ACH, Zelle, wire and cheque claims arrive at the same desk under different rules and clocks. AdjustmentHub runs them all on one engine, with card and debit network connections built in one network at a time since 2016. When a network changes its rules, Lean updates NetworkHub and AdjustmentHub.
Mechanism NetworkHub, the integration layer inside the platform. Additional network certifications join as they complete. Status is published, never pre-announced.
Enterprise means configured, not compromised.
Enterprise dispute operations carry policy, portfolio and process requirements that off-the-shelf tools flatten. AdjustmentHub deployments are configured to match unique enterprise requirements. The configuration is done by business analysts and visual developers who have run dispute desks, and the tools to adjust it afterwards (workflow editor, letter editor, business variables, plug-ins) stay with your team.
Mechanism Configuration lives in the deployment layer, and your team holds the tools to change it.
We don't market capability we can't yet support and price.
We publish what is in production, what is audited or certified, and what a named client has measured, and we say plainly when something is none of those. In a regulated dispute workflow, a capability you cannot support, price or evidence is a liability the buyer inherits.
Mechanism Claims are gated on issuance and approval. Audit reports and certifications publish the week they are issued, never before. Client outcomes publish when the client approves the naming. Roadmap is discussed in the room, not asserted on the website.
What changes on the desk
- Intake Cases enter from digital banking, the contact centre and the branch into one record, classified and deadlined on creation.
- Straight-through Low-complexity claims (recurring-charge disputes, confirmed e-commerce fraud, identified merchant refunds) move from intake to provisional credit to chargeback submission without an analyst touching them.
- One agent view The analyst works any dispute type or channel in one workflow, with the network portals connected behind it rather than open beside it.
- Clocks and letters Reg E and Reg Z timers, provisional credit triggers and cardholder letters run from the case, not from a spreadsheet.
- Write-off threshold Automated assessment lets eligible low-value card-not-present claims be pursued rather than written off.
- Network rules VROL and Mastercom rule changes are maintained in the engine by Lean, not by your IT team.
Rabobank automated a significant part of its Visa and Mastercard dispute processing on AdjustmentHub.
Read the case studies →Frequently asked questions
Why automate dispute management rather than add staff?
Dispute volume moves with e-commerce and fraud, while analyst headcount is fixed and expensive to train. Automation takes the repeatable path (intake, classification, routing, provisional credit, chargeback submission) off the desk, so analysts work the exceptions.
What does "connected natively to the networks" mean?
Case filing, updates and resolution with Visa VROL and Mastercom happen from inside the AdjustmentHub workflow, through NetworkHub, rather than by re-keying the case into the network portal. The network connections are part of the platform, not a separate integration project.
How does Lean reduce operational risk?
Lean reduces operational risk in three places. The Reg E and Reg Z clocks, provisional credit triggers and cardholder letters run from the case rather than from a spreadsheet, so a deadline is not missed because someone forgot it. Every action on every case is logged as it happens, so the audit record is produced by the workflow rather than assembled afterwards. And routine cases complete without re-keying into a network portal, which removes a whole class of keying errors.
What does it cost to handle a dispute manually?
Mastercard's 2025 Global Chargebacks Outlook, with Datos Insights, puts the average cost for a financial institution to process one dispute at $9.08 to $10.32, mostly in staff time.2 The cost that figure does not show is the claim written off because working it costs more than it would recover. Automated assessment against the write-off threshold in AdjustmentHub lets eligible low-value claims be pursued instead.
What is the return on automating disputes?
At a global acquirer running AdjustmentHub, dispute processing time fell 72% and dispute-operations staffing went from seven to three.1 Returns depend on volume, mix and how much of the queue qualifies for straight-through processing, which is what the demo works through with your numbers.