Casap Helps Thwart First-Party Fraud and Settle Disputes

By Roy Urrico

Credit unions and other financial institutions (FIs) must ward off all kinds of security threats such as breaches, phishing, ransomware and identity theft. However, the leading fraud attack vector today in banking is first-party fraud, where members or customers provide false or manipulated information to obtain credit or banking products.

The New York City based fintech Casap, a portmanteau of "get your case done ASAP" provides an artificial intelligence (AI)-decisioning platform that helps credit unions, banks and fintechs fight fraud and resolve payment disputes.

Casap CEO and Co-Founder Shanthi Shanmugam.

Casap CEO and Co-Founder Shanthi Shanmugam sat down with Finopotamus to describe how their platform helps FIs mitigate fraud while automating up to 80% of disputed cases. Shanmugam told Finopotamus that Casap helps credit union, banks and fintech customers “figure out how we can instantly resolve disputes for honest members (in the case of credit unions) without losing money to fraudsters.”

Shanmugam explained Casap offers built-in regulatory expertise and AI-driven automation to increase recovery rates and prevent fraud. Casap works to eliminate unnecessary disputes, predicts outcomes in real time, and proactively reduces fraud volume, all while delivering a consumer-friendly, transparent experience. Casap’s cloud-based platform is integrated via application programming interface (API).

Taking on First-Party Fraud

First-party fraud represented 35.9% of all reported fraud in 2024, according to the 2025 LexisNexis Risk Solutions Cybercrime Report. First-party fraud includes chargeback fraud (disputing a valid purchase), application fraud (providing dishonest information on loan applications), and bust-out fraud (taking out loans with no intention to repay).

“Buy now, pay later (BNPL) clients reported more first-party fraud, as did financial institutions in general,” said the LexisNexis study.

“Our AI is also really good at figuring out who is lying, also known as first-party fraud, which now is the leading fraud attack vector across the globe. We're really good at figuring out who those folks are and we try our best to rehabilitate them if we can, or have some really tough conversations, when we need to,” said Shanmugam.

One Stop Shop for Disputes

Casap is rebuilding dispute resolution from the ground up: AI agents manage the full dispute lifecycle in one system, from intake to chargeback filing and communication; dynamic questioning and fraud investigation; analyze evidence in real time, predicting outcomes and automating all necessary steps, from issuing credits and filing chargebacks to merchant responses; and Casap’s proprietary fraud scoring proactively flags suspicious consumers and merchants to reduce dispute volume.

“Casap for our credit union clients is a one-stop shop for anything related to disputes,” said Shanmugam. “To do that, we integrate with all the major systems out there. We will integrate with digital banking providers. We've integrated with major cores. We are partners with both Mastercard and Visa. We've integrated directly to the network and our AI can understand those rules and figure out how to handle those rules.”

Shanmugam further explained that the Casap system also handles Regulation E (Reg E), which protects consumers in electronic fund transfers (EFTs), covering items such as ATMs, debit cards, and direct deposits under the Electronic Fund Transfer Act (EFTA); Regulation Z (Reg Z), which protects consumers in credit transactions; as well as other regulations. “We can also where needed integrate with the processor when we need to take actions like reissuing cards or really understanding what is happening on different payment rails. So, we will integrate with practically every system involved in the resolution of a dispute so we can provide a seamless one-stop shop experience.”

Casap claimed customer results so far include:

• Up to 80% of dispute cases automated.

• An 85% reduction in processing time.

• A 40% decrease in consumer contacts.

• Fifty-one percent fewer write-offs.

• Up to 60% improvement in Net Promoter Scores (NPS).

Earning Members’ Trust

“Every credit union in our country, they are all trying to do the same thing, which is earn the right to be the primary financial relationship for the member. The most important thing in maintaining trust is never breaking or losing trust in building that relationship. And when I think about a dispute or fraud, these are the moments of truth. Either your member is going to trust you for life because you have their back, or they are going to pick up and go elsewhere,” said Shanmugam. “I empower our credit unions (and we are CUSO ourself) to build lasting loyalty, lasting trust with their members, (and) we enable them to instantly resolve disputes without losing money to fraudsters.”

That’s where AI comes in, Shanmugam noted. When a member comes to a Casap-powered credit union with a dispute, for example, AI is able to ask the member the hard questions to determine if the member is truthful, and the likelihood of winning back money for this member. “Then based on what our AI thinks, we can instantly issue credit. We can instantly be generous to the member and give them that amazing experience.”

Shanmugam detailed the benefits their credit union clients received:  

• “Credit unions that work with Casap are able to resolve dispute cases that normally take an average of 90 days in as little as five days. We are able to really quickly resolve cases that used to take months and empower them to do this without needing to pay or outsource any work to a processor. Right now, 70% of credit unions outsource their chargebacks to their processor. They will pay the processor an amount per case, $20 to $40. And usually, the cases will take 90 days. In this day and age members will not be okay with that. They expect to know everything at any time, 24/7.”

• “We eliminate a cost altogether on day one. Credit unions are saving money with us because they are no longer needing to pay their processor any amount of money to manage the disputes or the chargebacks.”

• “Our credit unions have seen a 51% reduction in fraud losses after Casap. That is how much money they were losing to having large write-off thresholds by ‘saying anything less than this amount, I'm not even going to look at it because my team doesn't have time.’ We're making their team so efficient that their teams can actually investigate so many more cases,” explained Shanmugam.

In general, the credit unions that use Casap, are empowered with best-in-class knowledge right at their fingertips without needing to be experts themselves on the frontline, she said. “Honestly, if you think about it, someone in a branch, someone in a call center, their goal is to build a deeper relationship with the member. Their goal is not to remember all of the 500 rules involved around disputes. We empower them with all that knowledge upfront. The back-office teams (deposit operations, card services, fraud) they are using the platform to really make quick decisions and accurate ones. We want to get (members) their money back immediately.”

Funding and Best of Show

In August 2025, Casap announced a $25 million series A funding.

In September was one of six winners of the Best of Show award at FinovateFall 2025. Casap was recognized “for its technology that helps financial institutions and fintechs lower operational costs and lift, curb fraud-related losses, accelerate resolution times, and strengthen customer relationships at scale.”

“We’re so honored to win ‘Best of Show’ at FinovateFall,” said Shanmugam. “At the heart of many disputes is a consumer who just wants to feel heard and protected. But today, they’re stuck in long, confusing processes—while financial institutions are simultaneously being hit by an explosion of first-party fraud and the ballooning dispute volumes it creates. Casap flips that script. We give institutions the tools to resolve cases quickly, fairly, and transparently — delighting honest consumers while protecting against abuse.”