Eight in ten community bankers regard vigorously maintaining data security as their top technological priority and the majority said they are looking for more ways to safeguard customer information, according to a survey by Independent Community Bankers of America.

In response to a question that allowed more than one answer, eight in ten also listed managing risks as their top technology concern, followed by protecting data and infrastructure (74 percent), adding value to organization (52 percent) and detecting fraud (51 percent). Attracting, developing, and retaining IT professionals got a meager 12 percent.

Nearly half of the community banks – 48 percent –  that participated in the 2008 ICBA Community Bank Technology Survey said their 2008 technology budgets exceed their 2007 budgets, but there were striking differences in the responses of the smallest and largest community banks.

Forty-four percent of survey participants with $100 million or less in assets said they plan to spend more compared to 50 percent of those with assets ranging from $100 million to $500 million and 53 percent of banks with assets exceeding $500 million.

Just 9 percent of all community banks said they are spending less and 28 percent said this year’s spending on technology is the same as last year’s.

Thirty-two percent of the banks said technology spending accounts for between 5 percent and 9 percent of their total noninterest expenses and 29 percent said it accounts for between 10 percent and 14 percent. Twelve percent said they spend less than 5 percent and 3 percent spend more than 15 percent. Ten percent said they didn’t know.

Security topped the list for spending increases over the next 24 months. Fifty-seven percent said they would boost spending in this area while 39 percent said their security IT spending would remain the same.

The majority of the banks also expect their compliance spending to increase in the next two years with 54 percent expecting it to cost more and 41 percent expecting no change. This category is not broken down to show the asset sizes of the respondents.

Fifty-one percent said they expect to spend more on fraud detection and 47 percent expect to spend more on network infrastructure. The area in which the largest number of banks – 7 percent –  said they expect to spend less in the next two years was found to be communications. Thirty-seven percent said they planned to increase their communications spending while 53 percent expect it to remain the same.