Quantum Readiness for Banking Professionals
A plain-English guide for the people in a bank who will own, fund, plan or oversee the move to quantum-safe cryptography: programme leads, risk and governance managers, business analysts and the executives they report to. No mathematics required.
From "what's at risk" to a phased roadmap
Each chapter ends with five questions to take to your next steering committee.
What quantum threatens in a bank, and what it doesn't
The one-sentence version, what is and isn't at risk, and the two clocks that set priorities.
Where cryptography lives in a payments estate
Follow one payment through eight uses of cryptography, four layers and eight hiding places.
Building a cryptographic inventory
Scope, a record template, how to find assets, and a worked example from a fictional bank.
Deciding what to fix first
Two buckets, Mosca's test, a simple scoring worksheet, and why lead times set the schedule.
Crypto-agility first
Why the ability to change algorithms is the most durable early investment, and how to fund it.
Vendors and third parties
Tiering suppliers, the questions to ask, rating the answers, contract clauses and payment networks.
Governance and the regulatory map
Ownership, the risk register, what to measure, and exactly what regulators do and don't require.
A phased roadmap
Four phases to 2035, what done looks like, the critical path and the first 100 days.
One fictional bank, start to finish
Every chapter follows Larkfield Bank, an invented mid-sized Canadian bank, from a first look at its cryptography to a ten-year plan. Larkfield and its figures are illustrative; the standards, guidance and dates come from public sources cited at the end of each chapter.
Check where you stand
The readiness self-assessment takes about five minutes and shows your weakest area. The glossary explains every term in plain English.
This guide is educational. It describes the industry in general, not any specific institution, and isn't legal, regulatory or security advice. Views are the author's own.