Why banks must act fast on quantum threat

The financial cost of delay would be roughly 2.5% of the information technology budget.

The financial sector faces an impending, unquantified Quantum-Day threat where quantum computers could dismantle existing cryptography, posing an existential risk, according to industry leaders.

Vincent Loy, Assistant Managing Director at the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), stressed that fast-moving technology mandates ‘no regrets moves’ starting with inventorying cryptographic keys and planning for agile system changes.

The necessity for immediate action is underscored by the ‘Harvest Now, Decrypt Later’ threat, where malicious actors are currently stealing encrypted data for future decryption, as explained by Camilla Bullock, CEO of the Emerging Payments Association, Asia, during a panel discussion at the Singapore Fintech Festival 2025.

“The necessary Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) algorithms are already available for migration,” Bullock noted.

Nimish Panchmatia, Chief Data and Transformation Officer at DBS, also affirmed that quantum readiness is an existential issue for the bank, whose number one proposition is trust.

Colin Payne, Head of Innovation at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the United Kingdom, outlined his organisation's strategy to plan, prepare, and guide the industry, comparing delay to waiting for a car accident.

“The financial cost of delay would cost roughly 2.5% of the information technology budget over the next few years,” Payne said. He projects this cost to jump to 5% if delayed by three or four years.

Bullock highlighted that a simple payment involves approximately 20 encryption points, and complex systems can have over 100, making the required cryptographic asset inventory a massive undertaking.

The most concerning scenario, according to Payne, is the alliance of artificial intelligence and quantum technology, suggesting a major disruptive event could be triggered by a single actor weaponising this combination.

The panellists uniformly stressed the final advice to ‘start now’ with Moderator Richard Tong, Co-founder and CEO of Total Neural Enterprises, concluding that the technical problem is not overly complicated if companies build systems that allow them to swap encryption quickly.