Recognizing these limitations, Q2 Holdings brought forth two new featuresUser Activity Monitoring and Restricted Entitlements Modethat enable banks to identify and prevent account takeover fraud in real time. These new capabilities extend the existing fraud catalog on Q2, enabling them to take a comprehensive and seamless approach to fight fraud across the digital banking experiences. However, as attack numbers and sophistication of account takeover increasefrom login activity and session behavior to account modifications and transactionsfor point-in-time detection tools will not be sufficient.
Q2’s newest innovations tackle this evolution, integrating AI-powered intelligence into digital banking processes so institutions can detect this criminal activity sooner and act immediately.
“Fraud no longer happens at a single point; it unfolds across the entire digital session,” said Q2 Managing Director, Fraud Intelligence Jeff Scott. “With this continuous approach to account takeover protection, we’re embedding intelligence directly into digital banking session workflows to help institutions shift from reactive detection to taking immediate, dynamic action before fraud occurs. Threats get stopped earlier, reducing both fraud losses and operational burden.”
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Continuous Detection and Real-Time Response
Q2’s approach replaces fragmented fraud controls with a unified system that continuously analyzes behavioral signals, account activity, and transactions in real time. By leveraging AI-powered insights, financial institutions can move beyond reactive strategies and adopt proactive, session-based fraud prevention.
The two newly launched capabilities form the core of this detection-and-response system:
User Activity Monitoring (UAM): Implements AI-enabled behavior analysis to constantly monitor user activity during live digital banking sessions.
It combines deterministic rules and adaptive machine learning models to detect risky behaviors.
Restricted Entitlements Mode (REM): it is a policing mechanism, can be imposed and enforced that applies immediate punishment upon the revelation of the risk, such as: restricting access, changing permissions or neutralizing compromised accounts.
These features work along side other solutions such as Q2. Patrol; monitor high risk account activity, and Q2. Sentinel; identify Transaction anomalies, providing a completely closed loop of fraud detection, assessment and prevention within a session.
Strengthening Fraud Prevention with a Unified Platform
Early on it has been shown that Q2’s 24/7 continuous fraud protection model is working. Using behavior-based tracking and “walking the line” enforcement, financial institutions have increased awareness and react more quickly to these concerns.
“In just a few months of testing, we’ve seen strong signal quality from User Activity Monitoring, with more than a third of alerts aligning to confirmed fraud and a meaningful portion identifying risk we hadn’t detected elsewhere,” said First Bank VP and Digital Banking Lead John Schulte. “It’s helping us uncover high-risk activity earlier, refine our fraud strategies proactively, and collaborate more closely with Q2 to continuously improve detection accuracy. We’re especially encouraged by how this will evolve—bringing together richer data and better visibility across User Activity Monitoring and Sentinel to further strengthen our fraud monitoring capabilities.”
“What is notable about Q2’s approach is the combination of behavioral signal detection with direct control over enforcement,” said IDC Research Director for Risk, Compliance and Financial Crime Sam Abadir. “By connecting User Activity Monitoring with real-time action through Restricted Entitlements Mode, Q2 is addressing one of the more persistent challenges in fraud operations: the lag between identifying a threat and acting on it. Closing that gap within a single session, without requiring manual intervention, is what makes this model worth attention.”
By embedding intelligence directly into its digital banking platform, Q2 is aligning with a broader industry shift toward integrated fraud prevention systems that connect detection, decision-making, and enforcement. This unified approach helps financial institutions reduce false positives, streamline operations, and strengthen overall account security while delivering a more seamless digital banking experience.
