Introduction

Transaction disputes are a uniquely high-stakes challenge in fintech. Whether it’s a fraudulent charge, a duplicate transaction, or a merchant who failed to deliver, customers expect fast resolution—and zero tolerance for mistakes.

Behind the scenes, these requests are anything but simple. They involve emotional users, strict regulatory timelines (like Reg E in the U.S. and PSD2 in Europe), detailed documentation, and multi-step workflows.

Traditionally, every part of a dispute—verification, intake, categorization, escalation—has required human involvement. But that’s changing.

With Fini’s AI agents, fintech companies can now automate large portions of the dispute handling process. The result? Faster resolution, lower manual workload, and stronger compliance—without sacrificing trust.

A High-Stakes Use Case Meets AI Opportunity

Disputes aren’t just another support ticket. They’re sensitive, regulated, and emotionally charged. A single misstep, like a missed refund or a poorly-worded message, can quickly erode trust and invite scrutiny.

Handling them well requires speed, accuracy, empathy, and compliance.

Fini’s AI agents are designed to handle this exact intersection. With proper safeguards, they can now:

• Capture accurate dispute details
  
  
  

• De-escalate emotional users
  
  
  

• Route cases efficiently
  
  
  

• Reduce turnaround time on resolution
  
  
  

We’ve seen customers reduce dispute handling time by up to 50% while increasing audit readiness..

Why Disputes Are Uniquely Challenging for AI Agents

Unlike a simple balance check, transaction disputes demand precision, emotional intelligence, and legal rigor—simultaneously.

Disputes are:

• Heavily regulated: Reg E and PSD2 set strict response and documentation standards.
  
  
  

• Emotionally charged: Money is on the line, and users are often anxious or frustrated.
  
  
  

• Sensitive: AI needs to handle PII, transaction histories, and financial metadata.
  
  
  

• Complex: Resolution requires multiple inputs, validation, and sometimes human judgment.
  
  
  

This is why dispute workflows are one of the most advanced, high-trust use cases for AI in fintech support—and why Fini built agentic workflows purposefully around them.

Where AI Should (and Shouldn’t) Operate in the Dispute Journey

AI can carry the intake workload—while leaving final decisions to compliance-trained teams.

Designing a Dispute-Handling AI Agent with Fini

Building an AI-powered dispute intake flow isn’t just about plugging in a chatbot and hoping for the best. It requires thoughtful design, precise data handling, and collaboration between product, CX, and compliance teams.

This section breaks down the four most critical components of Fini’s AI agents and how it effectively manages the dispute intake process, from identifying the right transaction to preparing a clean, structured handoff to human agents when needed

1. Transaction Lookup & Linking

Disputes often begin with vague user inputs like “I didn’t make this charge”. Fini’s agents:

• Pull recent transactions via secure APIs

• Interpret fuzzy queries like “Amazon charge from last Friday”

• Cross-check metadata: amount, merchant, date

2. Dispute Classification

Once the charge is confirmed, the AI agent must classify the dispute reason. Fine-tuned models can detect:

• Fraudulent charges

• Duplicate transactions

• Items not received

• Billing or currency errors

If confidence is low, Fini switches to guided questioning (e.g., “Do you recognize this merchant?”) to reduce errors.

3. Guided Intake Form

Each dispute category requires different information. Fini dynamically:

• Generates tailored questions

• Validates entries (amounts, dates, IDs) in real time

• Auto-fills CRM or internal forms for ops teams

4. Context-Aware Escalation

When human review is required, Fini hands off a structured case file:

• Transaction details

• User inputs & timeline

• Sentiment signals (e.g., signs of frustration)

• Classification confidence score

This means human agents don’t need to restart, they get all the context in one place, accelerating resolution and improving SLAs.

Compliance Best Practices

Compliance-First, By Design

Compliance isn’t a checkbox—it’s the foundation of trust in fintech.

Fini bakes audit-readiness into every interaction:

• ✅ Timestamps + transcripts of every dispute conversation

• ✅ Pre-approved language tuned to regulatory tone and guidelines

• ✅ SLA-aware messaging (e.g., “We’ll update you within 10 business days”)

• ✅ Secure data handling using tokenized PII and SOC2/ISO27001-compliant infrastructure

In fact, many of our customers find that Fini actually improves compliance by standardizing responses and flagging outliers.

A Real Example: What Great Looks Like

One fintech customer—a card issuer with over 1M users—used Fini to automate their Reg E dispute intake.

Before Fini:

• Support agents manually reviewed every incoming message

• Average time-to-classify a dispute: 45 minutes

• Documentation was inconsistent, causing audit gaps
  
  
  

After Fini:

• 70% of disputes are now auto-classified and pre-filled

• Agents handle only the escalations with all context ready

• Time-to-intake dropped to under 10 minutes

• SLA violations reduced by >40%

Pitfalls to Avoid

Even with the best intentions, it’s easy to misstep when implementing AI in a high-stakes workflow like transaction disputes. From design decisions that unintentionally frustrate users to oversights that create compliance risk, the margin for error is slim. Avoiding these common pitfalls will ensure your AI agent adds value, and not confusion, to the dispute resolution process.

Conclusion: AI Can Handle the Heavy Lifting—If You Design It Right

AI agents won’t replace your compliance team, but they can dramatically reduce the load, speed up dispute processing, and improve customer trust. With thoughtful design, you can safely automate the most tedious and error-prone parts of the workflow.