The British bank said it used the tool to safeguard a trade
on its proprietary platform, HSBC AI Markets, exchanging 30 million euros for
U.S. dollars.
The test, details of which are reported here for the first
time, shows how banks are trying to get ahead of cyber criminals who could use
advances in computing to access trading data in global financial systems such
as the $7.5 trillion per day foreign exchange market.
"While we take the view that we are some distance away
from quantum computers being able to break traditional encryption, the time to
prepare for this is now," Colin Bell, CEO of HSBC Europe, told Reuters.
HSBC's test ran on a network created by British
telecommunications company BT (BT.L) and using devices developed by Toshiba as
well as support from Amazon Web Services.
The test is an important step in showing the commercial
applications of the technology using currently available fibre networks, said
Andrew Shields, head of quantum technology, Toshiba Europe.
Howard Watson, Chief Security and Networks Officer, BT
Group, said it was critical that digital infrastructure remained secure against
new quantum-based threats.
HSBC said the test helped it plan how it could roll out to
some of its trading systems a form of encryption known as quantum key
distribution (QKD).
QKD uses particles of light to deliver secret keys between
parties that can be used to encrypt and decrypt sensitive data, the bank said.
"The protection of both the bank's data and our
clients' data is something that we take with the utmost seriousness," said
Richard Bibbey, global head of foreign exchange, emerging market rates and
commodities at HSBC.
"Were someone to be able to eavesdrop on the flows that
go across the largest foreign exchange institutions, they will have a
significant amount of information, the capacity to manipulate the market and to
understand what trades have been executed before they have been
risk-managed."
Quantum computers promise to be millions of times faster
than today's most powerful supercomputers, potentially revolutionizing
everything from medical research to battling climate change.
Banks worldwide are working on how to take advantage, as
well as how to protect themselves against any risks.
"Bringing quantum key distribution to a trading
scenario is a real-world example of how this technology ... establishes a model
for even more use cases to help customers stay secure," Simone Severini,
general manager, quantum technologies at Amazon Web Services (AMZN.O), said.
Some 297 patents for so-called Post Quantum Cryptography, or
systems resistant to quantum computing attacks, have been filed in the United
States alone since 2015, according to John Egan, CEO of independent BNP Paribas
research subsidiary L'Atelier.
Some experts are sceptical of the immediate practical
implications of the QKD technology for financial markets.
Authorities say its specialist hardware requirements make
QKD impractical for many potential end users, said Martin Albrecht, professor
of cyber security at King's College London.