Major Banks Test Quantum Computing Technology to Secure Financial Transactions

Banks from America, Europe, and Asia have begun testing quantum computing applications on their financial systems, as part of a frantic race to secure banking infrastructure before quantum computers become capable of breaking traditional encryption systems.

IBM and its banking partners revealed that quantum computing theoretically enables performing calculations that take years in a matter of seconds, granting the ability to breach the RSA and AES protocols used in most current financial transactions.

In the face of this threat, the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) launched a set of "post-quantum" encryption standards, which major financial institutions including JPMorgan, Standard Chartered, and Citibank are working to adopt.

Major technology companies like Google and Intel are racing to develop their quantum processors, while the financial sector has become the most urgent field for adopting this technology due to the volume of daily transactions whose data it protects

What do these terms mean?

Quantum Computing: Advanced computers that use the principles of quantum physics to process massive amounts of data in record time, instead of traditional computers that operate on the binary zero and one system.

Encryption: The process of converting data into unreadable code without a private key — as if putting your message in a safe that can only be opened by someone holding the correct key.

RSA Protocol: One of the most common encryption systems in banking and the internet, relying on the difficulty of mathematically factoring large numbers — something that quantum computing could facilitate in the future.