In March of this year Gartner Inc. surveyed a small number of banks (50) to determine how they were handling the various security threats that they're now exposed to. They found that banks in general plan on spending more in 2009 than they will in 2008 on fraud detection and customer authentication. Larger banks, over $150 billion, plan to be ramping up security more than smaller banks. Twenty percent indicated they will spend significant amounts to enhance security.

One of the reasons cited for the increase was compliance with banking requirements. On a scale of 1 to 7, with 7 being more important, regulatory compliance ranked 6.58. Improving fraud prevention was rated 6.26 and increasing consumer confidence was at 6.22 on the scale.

As to specific areas that banks want to enhance under fraud detection and customer authentication, improved caller authentication for call centers, enterprise-wide fraud detection tools and processes and case-management software to better manage the problems.