Hong Kong’s central bank has put a number on lenders’ quantum preparedness, and the result is low.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) on Monday published a whitepaper on the banking sector’s readiness for the quantum era, along with its first Quantum Preparedness Index. The index gave Hong Kong’s banking industry a score of 2.3 out of 10.

The whitepaper, released at the eighth FiNETech conference and based on a survey conducted earlier this year, suggests that awareness of quantum risk is starting to rise, but formal preparation remains limited.

According to the HKMA, about 68% of the banks surveyed showed at least some awareness of the issue or had moved into planning or pilot stages. The remainder had not yet started. Roughly half of the banks have yet to formalize a plan for moving to post-quantum cryptography. Board-level discussions had taken place at about half of the banks, but only one-third had begun exploring or testing anything quantum-related.

In practical terms, Hong Kong banks are still laying the groundwork rather than building mature quantum capabilities. The index tracks four stages: awareness, planning, pilot programs and practical preparedness, giving the regulator a baseline it can use to measure progress toward its 2030 target.

The HKMA said the low score reflects the fact that many banks are still at the earliest stage of understanding the risks posed by quantum computing, even as security experts warn that the quantum era may be approaching sooner than expected.

The concern is tied to the role cryptography plays in modern finance. Quantum computing is seen as a long-term threat to the encryption systems that protect banking data and other digital infrastructure. Banks are considered particularly exposed to so-called “harvest now, decrypt later” attacks, a risk highlighted by the Bank for International Settlements’ Project Leap as an immediate threat to the financial system.

Under that scenario, malicious actors could store encrypted data today and wait until quantum hardware becomes powerful enough to break it. Blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum face similar risks, creating a broader security challenge for modern finance.

Large-scale quantum machines capable of breaking bank security or blockchains such as Bitcoin do not exist today. Still, some estimates place the point at which the threat could become real as early as 2029.

The HKMA said it aims to raise Hong Kong’s Quantum Preparedness Index to 10 by 2030. To help banks get there, the regulator is rolling out practical measures including a post-quantum cryptography toolkit being developed with Hong Kong University of Science and Technology’s business school, along with a series of workshops designed to help banks build skills, improve crypto agility and explore quantum opportunities responsibly.

Hong Kong’s effort comes as other governments are also setting timelines for quantum development and security migration. President Donald Trump recently signed two executive orders: one intended to accelerate U.S. quantum computing development, with a goal of producing a machine powerful enough for scientific research by 2028, and another calling for the federal government’s migration to post-quantum cryptography by 2030-31.