How to organise a dispute management flow

Fraud & Disputes
Aug 29, 2025

Mastercard projects that global chargeback volumes will increase by 24% by 2028, reaching over 324 million cases per year. Each one is costly… Processing a single dispute can cost $9 to $10, and the true cost is often more than three times the original transaction amount. With dispute rates up nearly 80% year-on-year in late 2024, banks can no longer treat dispute management as a back-office chore. It's now a critical function for protecting revenue and maintaining customer trust.

Every claim must be handled with precision, deadlines are unforgiving, and the cardholder experience is always on the line. For many issuers, the way disputes are organised still reflects outdated processes: siloed teams, heavy manual involvement, and fragmented tools. The result is often inefficiency, higher costs, and unnecessary friction for both cardholders and staff.

How dispute teams work today

Most dispute teams are divided into two groups: front-office and back-office. The front-office is where the cardholder journey begins. Agents field calls or emails, guide customers through dispute forms, and collect the details needed to open a case. The back-office then takes over, validating the information, preparing documents, liaising with networks, and ensuring that each case is compliant with Visa or Mastercard rules.

This model has worked for decades, but it comes at a cost. Legacy intake alone can take up to an hour for the cardholder and another 20 minutes for the bank. Data gathered through static forms is often incomplete or inaccurate, which means teams spend extra time chasing missing information. And because disputes require constant back-and-forth between multiple systems, from network portals to internal case tools, teams waste hours on low-value administrative tasks rather than focusing on resolution.

The most common problems

The challenges of this setup fall into three main categories. First is inefficiency. Manual intake and fragmented tooling create unnecessary workloads on both sides of the process. A cardholder who simply doesn't recognise a transaction may end up filling out a form that automatically becomes a case, even though nearly 50% of "do not recognise" claims can be resolved in under a minute with Amiko's Virtual Agent.

Second is poor data quality. Static intake methods don't prevent errors, whether intentional or accidental. Every misfiled claim translates into time-consuming follow-up communications, which delay resolution and frustrate cardholders.

Third is compliance risk. Because disputes come with strict timelines, any delay or oversight, whether missing a deadline or overlooking a required document, exposes issuers to direct financial losses.

Fraud vs. cardholder disputes

Although fraud and cardholder disputes often end up in the same system, they behave very differently.

Fraud cases usually start when a cardholder says, "I don’t recognise this transaction". In practice, almost half of these claims can be resolved in less than a minute once the cardholder sees additional transaction details. With automation, such as Amiko, more than 80% of fraud claims can be resolved or deflected before an agent even gets involved.

Cardholder disputes, on the other hand, are more complex. These are the "I didn’t receive my order" or "the service wasn't as described" cases. They require more context and documentation, and therefore demand more from both cardholder and bank. Even here, automation makes a measurable difference: around 20% of disputes are resolved instantly by the Virtual Agent, while the rest benefit from structured intake that reduces filing time to 2 to 3 minutes. What used to take an hour now takes only minutes, and the case data is far more accurate from the outset.

Towards an organised dispute flow

To set up a robust dispute management process, banks need to first rethink their approach. Intake is no longer about collecting static forms, but about guiding cardholders through a dynamic conversation that adapts to their specific claim. Pre-dispute mechanisms, such as Ethoca alerts, can resolve cases before they even reach the formal dispute stage. Merchant response times can be fast; around 75% happen within the first 24 hours, making it realistic for issuers to wait for outcomes before escalating.

On the back-office side, structured case data allows for automated document preparation, bulk submissions, and even intelligent rules for crediting accounts. Tasks that once took hours can be compressed into minutes. For example, a fraud case with 50 transactions can be processed in 5 to 10 minutes with Amiko bulk actions, compared to 3 hours manually.

The impact is profound. With modern tools, more than 70% of the workload is automated, leaving human agents free to handle the complex cases where judgment truly matters. The remaining manual effort is shrinking, thanks to custom automation rules and intelligent guidance.

From cost centre to value driver

Disputes will only continue to grow in volume and complexity. But with the right tools, they can shift from being a costly drain on resources, to a straightforward process that strengthens customer relationships. Banks that modernise their dispute management processes with automation and smarter case handling will be better prepared to protect revenue and maintain trust at scale. Amiko’s results demonstrate that the future of dispute management is all about building resilient, automated systems that work for both issuers and their customers.