Episode Six and Decisionly have partnered to combine card issuing infrastructure with AI-powered dispute automation for issuers.
The two companies have announced a partnership aimed at giving card issuers access to a combined offering covering both card infrastructure and end-to-end dispute management. Episode Six provides enterprise-grade card issuing technology, while Decisionly operates an AI-powered platform for dispute automation. Under the agreement, Episode Six's issuing clients will be able to connect to Decisionly's dispute management platform alongside their existing infrastructure.
Addressing dispute management complexity
According to the companies, the partnership responds to demand from issuers operating across multiple regions, currencies, and product lines, many of which have relied on dispute and chargeback tools not designed for the scale and complexity of current card programmes. John Mitchell, CEO and Co-Founder at Episode Six, said that the initiative was built to address every layer of the card programme stack, and that disputes represent an operational function within payments that is increasingly moving towards purpose-built technology.
Decisionly's platform automates the dispute lifecycle, incorporating regulatory requirements, payment network rules, and programme-specific configurations. The companies stated that the platform achieves automation rates above 95% from the outset of implementation and reduces manual dispute-handling work by more than 80%. Both platforms are built on an API-first architecture, which the companies said allows data to be exchanged between the two systems.
Episode Six describes itself as an API-first, cloud-native card issuing provider operating in more than 50 countries, serving banks and fintechs that use its infrastructure either alongside existing systems or as the basis for new deployments. Decisionly provides API-first dispute infrastructure for fintechs, banks, and processors. Its founding team previously built Chargehound, a dispute automation company later acquired by PayPal, where it processed more than USD 1 billion in disputes for large payments and technology companies.
Pallavi Kuppa-Apte, CEO and Co-Founder at Decisonly, said the partnership provides access to a base of banks and fintechs already operating on modern card infrastructure, which the company views as positioned to adopt dispute automation. The two companies said their platforms serve overlapping markets across the US, Canada, and Europe.
Implications for issuers
For issuers, the partnership signals a shift in how dispute management is positioned within card programmes: rather than being treated purely as an operational cost, the companies suggest disputes handling can also factor into the cardholder experience. As card issuing infrastructure continues to modernise, dispute automation is emerging as a distinct area of technology investment for banks, fintechs, and processors managing increasingly complex, multi-region card portfolios.
