Hong Kong’s banking sector scored just 2.3/10 on the HKMA’s first Quantum Preparedness Index, with nearly one-third of banks yet to begin preparations. The regulator aims for a perfect 10/10 readiness score by 2030.
- The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) gave the city’s banking sector a 2.3-out-of-10 score on its first Quantum Preparedness Index (QPI), launched July 27 alongside a new whitepaper.
- The regulator wants the sector at a perfect 10 by 2030.
- This is the delivery of a concept HKMA first flagged in February 2026: the gap between that promise and Monday’s actual data is the story.
- 68% of banks have started some form of preparation; 32% haven’t taken any steps at all.
Hong Kong’s banks are, by their own regulator’s measure, mostly still figuring out what quantum computing means for them. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority put a number on it Monday: 2.3 out of 10. That’s the sector’s debut score on the newly launched Quantum Preparedness Index, unveiled alongside a whitepaper at the FiNETech8 conference, where Carmen Chu, HKMA’s Executive Director for Banking Supervision, opened proceedings in front of more than 300 practitioners from finance and tech. The target is a clean 10, full sector readiness, and HKMA has given the industry until 2030 to get there.
Five months from promise to proof
The index itself isn’t a surprise. HKMA first raised the idea of a Quantum Preparedness Index in February 2026, as one of four projects under its Fintech Promotion Blueprint, alongside a New Risk Data Strategy, a Fintech Cybersecurity Baseline, and a Supporting Competency Development initiative. At the time, it was a stated intention with urgency attached but no numbers behind it. Carmen Chu said then that it was important to prepare now, even as experts estimated it could take five to ten years before a quantum computer capable of breaking today’s encryption actually exists. The broader fintech roadmap has also included major work around digital assets, with the HKMA recently reinforcing its stablecoin oversight efforts ahead of the new licensing framework.
Monday’s release is what that promise turned into. The whitepaper, developed under the same Fintech Promotion Blueprint, is the first time the QPI concept has had actual survey data attached to it. What changed between February’s pitch and July’s delivery is precisely the kind of texture a plan can’t have until someone runs the survey: a measurable score, a breakdown by category, and named examples of who’s actually doing something about it.
What the survey found
The QPI doesn’t just spit out a single number. According to reporting on the survey, HKMA built it around four categories, awareness, planning, pilot projects, and operational readiness, and asked banks where they stood on each. One account of the results indicates a sector that’s aware of the problem but hasn’t mostly moved past that stage: 68% of banks have begun some kind of preparation, whether that’s raising internal awareness, drafting a plan, or running a pilot, while 32% haven’t taken any steps at all. Roughly half say they have no formal roadmap for adopting post-quantum cryptography (PQC), even though a similar share say the topic has already reached the boardroom, and about a third have started exploring or testing quantum-related applications directly.
The whitepaper also points to concrete work already underway. One surveyed institution has completed a proof of concept applying post-quantum cryptography to distributed-ledger connectivity, and the document cites HSBC’s 2024 use of quantum-safe technology to move tokenized gold across distributed ledgers as an existing industry example. To help close the gap between the leaders and the 32% who haven’t started, HKMA is partnering with the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology’s School of Business and Management to build a PQC toolkit and run training workshops for banks. The initiative sits, reported elsewhere and not independently confirmed by us, under the “Resilience” pillar of HKMA’s DART framework, part of the broader Fintech 2030 strategy that spans more than 40 initiatives.
Why the timing matters
None of this is happening in a vacuum. Hong Kong has issued three batches of tokenized green bonds worth roughly HK$16.8 billion (about $2.1 billion) since 2023. By the end of 2025, banks in the city held more than HK$14 billion in digital assets under custody, up about 180% year over year, with tokenized deposits reaching HK$29 billion, according to Financial Secretary Paul Chan. Every one of those figures depends on cryptographic signatures holding up. A regulator watching that growth curve while its own index reads 2.3 out of 10 has an obvious reason to move from announcing a plan to publishing a score. That broader digital asset momentum is also attracting private-sector investment, with fintech firms tied to Hong Kong’s regulated stablecoin ecosystem continuing to expand as the market matures.
What’s next
HKMA hasn’t said how often it plans to re-run the QPI survey, but the four-year runway to 2030 implies there will be more checkpoints between now and then. The bigger question the whitepaper leaves open is how quickly the 32% of banks with no plan in place start closing that gap, and whether HKMA’s next release comes with another five months of daylight between promise and delivery, or something faster.
FAQ
What is the Quantum Preparedness Index?
A benchmark HKMA introduced to score how ready Hong Kong’s banking sector is for quantum-computing-related cyber risks, based on a survey covering awareness, planning, pilot projects, and operational readiness.
Why does quantum computing pose a risk to banks?
The concern, broadly, is that a sufficiently powerful quantum computer could eventually break the encryption standards, like RSA and elliptic-curve cryptography, that currently secure online banking, digital signatures, and transaction authorization.
Where did the 2030 deadline come from?
HKMA set it as the target date for the sector to reach a QPI score of 10, alongside the initial 2.3 score.
Is this the first time HKMA has mentioned a Quantum Preparedness Index?
No. The concept was first announced in February 2026 as one of four projects under HKMA’s Fintech Promotion Blueprint, months before Monday’s whitepaper delivered the actual survey data.
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