The Role Of Real-Time Decisioning In Online Risk Management

InnovationThe Role Of Real-Time Decisioning In Online Risk ManagementByTamas Kadar,Forbes Councils Member.for Forbes Technology CouncilCOUNCIL POSTExpertise from Forbes Councils members, operated under license. Opinions expressed are those of the author. | Membership (fee-based)Jun 09, 2026, 10:15am EDTTamas Kadar is the CEO and cofounder of SEON. gettyThe rise of instant payment systems has brought as many risks as rewards. Funds move in seconds, but fraud tactics like authorized push payment (APP) fraud and account takeovers (ATOs) play out in seconds, often faster than organizations can react. Synthetic identity theft compounds the problem, with fraudsters creating bogus personas to open mule accounts.Generative AI makes the threat environment even more volatile. Attackers use deepfakes, automated phishing tools and AI-powered voice cloning to scale social engineering. The U.S. experienced a 9% increase in reported identity theft incidents in 2024, with credit card fraud leading the surge. The FBI also found that global cybercrime costs exceeded $16 billion that year, a one-third jump from the prior year​.Since fraud unfolds in real time, even the smallest delays in batch-based review cycles can cause risk teams to miss the threat. Consider a mid-sized digital bank that discovers a coordinated ATO campaign only after dozens of customers report unauthorized transfers. By the time the batch review cycle flags the anomaly, the funds are gone.By ingesting data as events occur with real-time risk management, risk teams can evaluate signals as they appear. This can help organizations enable instant—even preemptive—action, but it also requires an architectural shift in fraud management.From Batch Processing To Real-Time Risk Protection​​Batch processing retains utility for post-settlement analysis, performance reporting and model training. But it often provides insight too late in several places where risk emerges: at sign-up, during payments and at account touchpoints....