Smart Investigate is to be Lloyds TSB’s correspondence exceptions handling system for international payments, and the company said it forms a key component within the bank’s broader Strategic International Payments, SIP, program, which it said is designed to provide a more scalable and flexible infrastructure in delivering a consistent, high quality service throughout the group.

We chose Pegasystems’ Smart Investigate framework after a thorough analysis of the market, said Mark Watkinson, CIO for money transmission, group operations at Lloyds TSB. We were looking for a tried-and-tested ‘future-proofed’ solution from a well-established company and that is exactly what we have found. We’re looking forward to reaping the benefits of the system over the coming years.

Pegasystems, meanwhile, said that its Smart Investigate system is built on top of its SmartBPM suite, which it describes as a rules-driven business process management software suite.

Pegasystems will be working with Lloyds TSB on detailed design, construction, and testing. The system is expected to go live in the fourth quarter of this year.

In the business process management space, Pegasystems competes with specialists like Metastorm, Lombardi, and Savvion, while BEA, Oracle, IBM, Software AG, Microsoft, and SAP also have products in the space.

Lloyds TSB is a leading UK financial services provider, with 16 million customers, about 1,900 branches, and 4,000 cash points. The group employs 72,000 staff across UK retail banking, insurance and investments, and wholesale and international banking.