Banco Santander, part of Europol’s forum on Quantum

In 2024, Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) created the Quantum Safe Financial Forum (QSFF), in close cooperation with the EC3 Advisory Group on Financial Services.

April 22, 2024.
The QSFF initiative is a multi-stakeholder effort to address the transition to Post Quantum Cryptography (PQC) across the financial sector, with a particular focus on Europe.

The QSFF aims to:

1. Drive a coordinated approach to the transition to Post Quantum Cryptography (PQC) in the financial sector.
2. Create a common assessment of the threat, applicable across the industry.
3. Identify challenges and best practices.
4. Discuss potential solutions for the financial sector.
5. Collaborate with other similar initiatives in support of a global engagement on the topic.
6. Share knowledge and explore mutual learning and training opportunities.

The aim of the QSFF is to share best practices and coordinate actions to address a safe transition to PQC. The QSFF is a safe space where its selected members can collaborate and help each other through this transition, fostering developments and addressing upcoming threats.

Quantum computing is expected to bring benefits to many different areas and will have a massive impact on business and economy. In addition to these benefits, it is also predicted that quantum computing will permanently undermine existing cryptography, thereby impacting the security of data and systems across all sectors and necessitating an urgent response. Individuals and organisations use cryptography to ensure privacy and maintain the confidentiality of data. But industry experts recently hypothesised that quantum computers will be able to crack an important part of our current cryptosystems in the 2030s.

The QSFF is a multi-stakeholder effort to address the transition to Post Quantum Cryptography (PQC) across the financial sector, with particular focus in Europe. The QSFF is comprised of experts from several major EU, UK and American commercial and central banks, other financial services providers, associations, and experts. Apart from Banco Santander, this includes Barclays Bank, BBVA, BNP Paribas, CaixaBank, Dutch Banking Association (Nederlandse Vereniging van Banken), European Banking Federation, FS-ISAC, Intesa Sanpaolo, Mastercard, Moody's, Novo Banco and Rabobank.

The QSFF is managed by a dedicated steering committee. Its current members cover a wide range of financial institutions to provide a comprehensive point of view of the sector interests. They are Angela Dupont, Jaime Gómez García (Chair of the SC, Banco Santander), Stewart Hackley (Barclays), Mike Silverman (FSISAC), and John Beric (Mastercard). 

More information in Europol’s site here.