Quantum Cryptography, Quantum Finance

Banks and regulators test quantum-proof digital asset transfers

Avatar of Ivy Delaney
August 24, 2026 by Ivy Delaney

Banks and regulators are jointly testing defenses against the approaching threat of quantum computing, with a new pilot program evaluating the ML-DSA-65 digital signature standard, as defined by NIST FIPS 204. Convened by the Responsible Fintech Institute and utilizing the NEAR testnet for on-chain transfers, the initiative involves multiple jurisdictions examining cross-border interoperability. “No single bank, vendor, or regulator solves this alone,” said Chia Hock Lai, Chairman of the Responsible Fintech Institute, explaining that transparently sharing research will establish a shared security reference for the financial industry.

Cross-Regional Pilot Evaluates Post-Quantum Digital Asset Transfers

Participating financial institutions are actively testing a standardized post-quantum cryptographic protocol, specifically ML-DSA-65, as part of a cross-regional pilot program designed to secure digital asset transfers. Convened by the Responsible Fintech Institute, the initiative moves beyond theoretical discussions of quantum-resistant technologies and into practical evaluation with institutions across multiple jurisdictions. The pilot utilizes the NEAR testnet for on-chain transfer activity, allowing for live network testing of the quantum-resistant infrastructure.

This collaborative effort extends beyond individual institutions, with regulators playing an integral role in observing and contributing to the development of governance standards. The program’s design incorporates a multi-party computation protocol, enabling secure wallet generation and transaction signing.

By bringing policymakers and financial institutions across jurisdictions together to test the same post-quantum architecture and transparently sharing that research with every participant, the consortium aims to build a compliance and security reference the whole industry can use, and a standard they all helped write. The urgency behind this initiative is fueled by the accelerating pace of development in artificial intelligence, which is projected to hasten the arrival of quantum computing capabilities.

Jag Foo, Chief Security & Policy Officer at Safeheron, stated that artificial intelligence is accelerating the pace of change and likely bringing the quantum threat closer to reality, making quantum-ready infrastructure more critical than ever. Safeheron is the technology partner for the pilot and intends to open-source the underlying protocol code to promote transparency and independent security audits. Bison Bank is among the financial institutions supporting the initiative, recognizing the importance of collaborative knowledge-sharing in preparing for evolving cybersecurity risks.

“As the financial sector prepares for future cybersecurity challenges, initiatives that encourage collaboration and knowledge-sharing among industry participants are increasingly important,” said António Henriques, CEO of Bison Bank. Regulators, including the Gelephu Financial Services Office and the Malta Financial Services Authority, are also actively involved, emphasizing the need to protect client funds and maintain the integrity of digital asset transactions.

David Peters, Managing Director of the Gelephu Financial Services Office, affirmed that ensuring the continuing integrity of these transactions and protecting client funds is critical to the smooth functioning of the investment market. The pilot’s findings, including protocol design and testing results, will be published in a whitepaper to facilitate broader industry learning and preparedness, with the ultimate goal of establishing accountable, industry-wide standards for post-quantum security.

We welcome the industry’s initiative to identify a reliable protocol that safeguards digital asset transactions.

David Peters, Managing Director of the Gelephu Financial Services Office
Stay current

See today’s quantum computing news on Quantum Zeitgeist for the latest breakthroughs in qubits, hardware, algorithms, and industry deals.

Tags:
post-quantum cryptography
Avatar of Ivy Delaney

Ivy Delaney

Ivy Delaney has been working with neural networks and machine learning since the mid-nineties, back when a couple of hidden layers and a long afternoon of training counted as ambitious. She has watched the field go from academic curiosity to the thing quietly running underneath everything, and she brings that long view to quantum computing. For Quantum Zeitgeist she covers the ground where the two fields meet. That means quantum machine learning and the variational algorithms it leans on, and it also means the less glamorous but more interesting story of classical machine learning already doing real work inside quantum machines, decoding error-correcting codes, calibrating noisy hardware and learning the error models that simulators depend on. She writes about the hardware those algorithms have to run on too, and about the post-quantum cryptography scramble that the same hardware has set off. Her stories typically start with the paper, whether that is peer-reviewed work, conference proceedings or an arXiv preprint, with the source linked so you can hold a claim up against the research it came from. She is unimpressed by benchmarks that will not say what they beat, and by demonstrations that only work in the press release.

Latest Posts by Ivy Delaney: