South Korea’s DGB Daegu Bank has teamed up with SK Telecom to boost its mobile app’s security with 5G quantum cryptography technology.

Marking the first quantum-powered service in the banking industry, IM Bank will enable users of the Samsung Galaxy A Quantum, the world’s first 5G smartphone equipped with a quantum random number generator (QRNG), to benefit from a new level of security in mobile banking transactions.

The users will have their personal information thoroughly protected when they transfer money through the mobile banking app using a digital one-time password (OTP) or when they open new accounts through the app via identity verification.

SK Telecom’s QRNG chipset embedded in the Galaxy A Quantum smartphone generates true random numbers that cannot be predicted. By encrypting the IM Bank app’s digital one-time passwords and identity verification information based on true random numbers, IM Bank provides advanced security for users.

SK Telecom and ID Quantique have successfully shared the application programming interfaces (APIs) of the Galaxy A Quantum with DGB Daegu Bank and are currently considering applying their quantum cryptography technologies to other services of DGB Daegu Bank.

According to DGB Daegu Bank, the number of customers who signed up for the mobile banking service doubled compared to last year, and commercial banks in Korea are witnessing a rapid increase in the number of non-face-to-face financial transactions. Along with the increased use of mobile banking services, personal information leakage has become a serious problem.

“Released in May 2020, the Galaxy A Quantum, the world’s first smartphone equipped with a quantum random number generator, has been drawing global attention,” said Han Myung-jin, Vice President and Head of MNO Marketing Group of SK Telecom. “Going forward, we will continue to build a safer and more secure society by applying our world’s best quantum cryptography technologies to other areas, including finance and the Internet of Things.”