Summary
BIS and the Eurosystem have completed Project Leap Phase 2, a large-scale trial of post-quantum cryptography on TARGET2, the euro area RTGS. Working with Banque de France, Deutsche Bundesbank, the Bank of Italy, and Swift, the team successfully sent PQC-signed liquidity transfers between central banks, proving basic functional viability in a production-grade setting.
The engineering story matters. Verification with PQC took meaningfully longer than RSA, and message sizes grew enough to force substantial redevelopment. Running a hybrid model, PQC plus RSA for compatibility and layered defense, exposed how legacy payment plumbing struggles with new cryptographic realities. The ESMIG connector in particular was ill prepared, and end-to-end latency was sensitive to both compute and network effects.
For CISOs and payment security leads, the takeaway is clear. Migration is achievable, but it is not a drop-in swap. Expect redesign of connectors and message handling, careful throughput and latency budgeting, and coordinated testing with vendors and market infrastructures. Start pilots, inventory size limits and signing paths, and plan for staged hybrid rollout while you harden performance and operational resilience.
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See the original article at: https://postquantum.com/security-pqc/bis-leap-2-pqc-payments/