In April 2025, NIST advanced its post-quantum cryptography (PQC) standardization process by selecting Hamming Quasi-Cyclic (HQC) as a backup key encapsulation mechanism (KEM), complementing the module lattice-based ML-KEM previously chosen. This update is critical for the financial services sector, which relies on long-term data confidentiality and is at risk from quantum computing threats, including "harvest now, decrypt later" attacks. NIST's move toward diversified cryptographic resilience and its earlier selection of one KEM and three digital signature algorithms in 2022 marks significant progress in building quantum-resistant infrastructures.

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