Family E · Cross-cutting disciplines · In development
Quantum Financial Professional (QFP™)
Banks already fund quantum computing; the judgment to use it is scarce.
Notice
Certification in development. It is not open to enrollment and carries no regulatory recognition. Domains, exam format and requirements come from the Quantum Computing Labs blueprint and the Institute's master blueprint, and may be adjusted before the opening.
QFP
01 — ABSTRACTQuantum Financial Professional (QFP™)
Nearly 80 % of the world's fifty largest banks are now investing in quantum technology. JPMorgan holds more than one hundred quantum patents; Goldman Sachs works with QC Ware on quantum Monte Carlo for derivatives pricing; HSBC is trialing quantum key distribution on its FX desk. In August 2024 NIST published the three post-quantum cryptography standards that leading banks have already begun to deploy. The technology already has a budget line inside banks; the judgment to use it and govern it remains scarce.
Quantum Financial Professional (QFP™) certifies that the professional understands what a quantum computer can and cannot do for a financial institution today, and can carry that answer into a decision: derivatives pricing by amplitude estimation, portfolio optimization, migration to post-quantum cryptography, language models deployed over financial documents, and the governance and validation of the models that result. It is a short certificate: 60 items per form and two forms, with a Qiskit laboratory inside the body of knowledge.
The certification is in development. The preparation program is being designed by Quantum Computing Labs, the group's institute for quantum computing and artificial intelligence; its calendar and price are to be confirmed. The exam fee is USD 1,000 + VAT and the first sitting has no date. It carries no regulatory recognition. The RiskMathics Certificate Institute, founded in 2025 on two decades of RiskMathics as a training house to separate certification from teaching, builds it as an independent third party. Those who wish to follow its opening may request information.
QFP
02 — INDUSTRYWhat is happening in the industry
Quantum computing has moved from research to strategic investment. The market reached USD 1.4 to 2.7 billion in 2024 and is projected at USD 9.4 to 20.2 billion by 2030; McKinsey puts the potential value for financial services at USD 400 to 600 billion by 2035. Hardware is advancing faster than expected: Google's Willow chip achieved the first below-threshold error correction in December 2024, and IBM's roadmap targets a fault-tolerant machine by 2029.
Cryptography is the first hard deadline. On 13 August 2024 NIST published FIPS 203, 204 and 205 (ML-KEM, ML-DSA and SLH-DSA), and the US CNSA 2.0 mandate requires compliance in new acquisitions for its national security systems from 1 January 2027. The harvest now, decrypt later threat — collecting encrypted data today to decrypt it with a future quantum computer — makes migration urgent: JPMorgan, HSBC and Goldman Sachs have begun deployment and the Banque de France targets full migration by 2027. No financial regulator has yet mandated it for private institutions, and no Latin American jurisdiction has quantum-specific regulation.
Talent does not cover demand. There are roughly 30,000 quantum computing professionals worldwide and three open positions for every qualified candidate; job listings grew 180 % between 2020 and 2024, and 250,000 new quantum jobs are projected by 2030. Credentials are embryonic: IBM's Qiskit Developer Certification has just over 1,300 holders across 71 countries, the CQF has devoted a single lecture to the subject since 2022, and GARP's RAI contains no quantum content. In Latin America, Brazil and Mexico produce 80 % of the region's research, and in 2025 UNAM became the first institution in the region to own quantum computing equipment.
QFP
03 — WHYWhy this certification
The review of more than 33 credentials behind the blueprint found none that examines quantum computing in a financial context with the rigor of a professional certification. The CQF, designed before the era of language models, devotes a single lecture to it; GARP's RAI has no quantum content and requires no code; IBM's Qiskit certification credentials the developer, not the financier; no university offers a stand-alone quantum finance credential. The gap is precise: a credential that measures the ability to apply and govern quantum computing and language models inside a financial institution.
Quantum Financial Professional (QFP™) demonstrates that the professional can tell real quantum advantage from commercial promise, cast a financial problem as a quantum optimization, read a circuit in Qiskit, plan a migration to post-quantum cryptography, deploy a language model over financial documents with retrieval augmentation, and validate the resulting model under SR 11-7 and the EU AI Act. It is the editorial owner of the Institute's common module on model governance, validation and artificial intelligence, which other certifications in the catalog inherit. It is certified by the RiskMathics Certificate Institute as an independent third party and prepared by Quantum Computing Labs.
- The only body of knowledge in the catalog that houses quantum computing: Machine Learner Certification™ expressly excludes it and points to this certification.
- Short-certificate format: 60 items per form and two forms, with 63.3 % from the certification's own item bank and 36.7 % inherited from the common module on model governance and artificial intelligence.
- Includes a Qiskit laboratory: the blueprint contemplates quantum simulation environments and LLM sandboxes on open-source models, not multiple-choice theory alone.
- Integrates post-quantum cryptography — NIST standards FIPS 203, 204 and 205 — which, according to the blueprint's review, no finance certification covers in depth.
- Prepared by Quantum Computing Labs, the group's institute built at the intersection of quantum computing and financial applications; the blueprint proposes delivery in Spanish from the first sitting.
- An exam built by an independent third party at Bloom levels 1, 2 and 3, with a cut score set by the modified Angoff method.
QFP
04 — OUTCOMESWhat it prepares for
- 01
Explain to an investment or technology committee what a qubit is, what superposition and entanglement contribute, and why a quantum computer solves certain financial problems differently from a classical one.
- 02
Cast a portfolio optimization problem as a QUBO, solve it with VQE or QAOA on a simulator, and compare the result with the classical method.
- 03
Describe quantum amplitude estimation and quantum Monte Carlo for derivatives pricing, and place them on the hardware horizon at which they would stop being experimental.
- 04
Read, modify and run a circuit in Qiskit or PennyLane, interpret its output and document it reproducibly.
- 05
Inventory an institution's cryptography, identify its exposure to harvest now, decrypt later, and build a prioritized migration plan to ML-KEM and ML-DSA.
- 06
Deploy a language model over a corpus of financial documents with retrieval augmentation, fine-tune it with LoRA where warranted, and measure it with metrics a validator will accept.
- 07
Validate a machine learning model with the tools of SR 11-7 and PRA SS1/23: out-of-time partitioning, data leakage, drift measured with PSI, champion-challenger, and SHAP explanations for an adverse credit decision.
- 08
Classify an AI system under the EU AI Act and the NIST AI RMF, and defend before the board or the supervisor which obligations apply to it.
QFP
05 — INSTITUTIONSThe cut-off line
Today an institution hiring for its quantum lab, its model office or its data team has two signals: the graduate degree and the code repository. Neither measures financial judgment. The degree certifies physics or data science; the repository certifies that the code runs. An institution that requires this certification gains a third signal, comparable across candidates: the person knows when a quantum algorithm delivers an advantage and when it does not, which keys must be migrated first and in what order, and how a language model is validated before it touches a credit file.
For the board, it produces a counterpart who translates vendors' quantum roadmaps into budget decisions. For the risk function and internal audit, it produces validators who speak the same language as the people building the models. It should be said plainly: the certification has no regulatory recognition and is not a license; it is a hiring and promotion standard that the institution chooses to adopt.
- Screens quants, data scientists, machine learning engineers and risk-technology leads against a single standard, without requiring a doctorate in physics.
- Gives the board and the technology committee a counterpart who separates demonstrable quantum advantage from commercial promise.
- Gives model validation and internal audit a shared vocabulary with the people who build AI models, under SR 11-7, PRA SS1/23 and the EU AI Act.
- It can be verified: the credential is earned through an exam administered by an independent third party, with the certification's own item bank and a cut score set by the modified Angoff method.
QFP
06 — PROFILEWho it is for
Who it is for
- Quants and model analysts at banks, broker-dealers, asset managers, Afores and insurers who must decide on quantum and AI applications in pricing, optimization and risk.
- Model validation, model risk and internal audit teams that receive machine learning and language models and have to validate them.
- Data teams, machine learning engineers and technology architects at financial institutions and fintechs exploring quantum computing or deploying language models.
- Information security and infrastructure leads responsible for planning the migration to post-quantum cryptography.
- Consultants and staff of financial supervisors who need the same technical depth as the institutions they serve.
Who it is not for
- Anyone seeking full depth in machine learning and production AI systems: that path is Machine Learner Certification™, which excludes quantum computing and points to this certification.
- Anyone who needs a research credential in quantum physics or hardware development: that is what graduate programs and IBM's Qiskit Developer Certification are for.
- Afore and insurance staff who need the certification their regime requires: that belongs to the Institute's CONSAR and CNSF families, and this certification does not replace it.
QFP
07 — KNOWLEDGEBody of knowledge
Six domains. The certification's own body of knowledge — quantum computing applied to finance, applied LLMs and the Qiskit laboratory — accounts for 63.3 % of the exam; the common module on model governance, validation and artificial intelligence, of which this certification is the editorial owner, accounts for 36.7 % (22 items per form). The weight of each own domain within that 63.3 % is to be confirmed; topics come from the Quantum Computing Labs blueprint and the Institute's master blueprint, and may be adjusted before the opening.
01Foundations of quantum computing for financeto be confirmed (part of the 63.3 % own content)
- Qubits, superposition and entanglement
- Quantum gates and circuits
- Quantum versus classical computing: what changes and what does not
- Introduction to quantum algorithms: Grover and Shor
- Error mitigation and correction; the timeline to fault tolerance
- Vendor landscape: IBM, Google, IonQ, Quantinuum and D-Wave
- Bank cases: patents, quantum Monte Carlo and quantum key distribution
02Quantum algorithms applied to financeto be confirmed (part of the 63.3 % own content)
- Quantum amplitude estimation for derivatives pricing
- Quantum Monte Carlo
- Quantum portfolio optimization: QUBO, VQE and QAOA
- Quantum annealing for optimization problems
- Foundations of quantum machine learning
- Quantum advantage assessment framework: when it helps and when it does not
- Quantum readiness roadmap for a financial institution
03Qiskit laboratory and quantum programmingto be confirmed (part of the 63.3 % own content)
- Qiskit: building, transpiling and running circuits
- PennyLane for quantum machine learning
- Simulators and cloud hardware access: IBM Quantum and Amazon Braket
- Reproducible Jupyter environments and version control
- Benchmarking exercises on real hardware
- Documenting results for a validator
04Post-quantum cryptography and quantum-safe migrationto be confirmed (part of the 63.3 % own content)
- Why Shor's algorithm threatens RSA and elliptic-curve cryptography
- NIST standards: FIPS 203 (ML-KEM), FIPS 204 (ML-DSA) and FIPS 205 (SLH-DSA)
- The harvest now, decrypt later threat
- The CNSA 2.0 timeline and central bank references
- Cryptographic inventory and system prioritization
- Quantum-safe migration plan and its governance
05Language models applied to financeto be confirmed (part of the 63.3 % own content)
- LLM architecture and foundation models
- Fine-tuning with LoRA and QLoRA for financial tasks
- Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) over financial documents
- Prompt engineering for banking: credit memos, research and compliance
- LLM evaluation and benchmarking
- Multimodal AI for document processing
- Risks specific to LLMs: hallucination, non-determinism, third parties and concentration
06Model governance, validation and artificial intelligence (common module)36.7 %
- Conceptual framework of model risk and the model lifecycle: SR 11-7 and PRA SS1/23
- Development, documentation and implementation; change control
- Independent validation, backtesting and ongoing monitoring
- Governance, roles, policies and third-party models
- Materialized model risk: quantification and cases
- Taxonomy of AI and ML risks: drift, bias, data leakage, reproducibility
- Explainability: SHAP, LIME, counterfactuals and reason codes
- AI regulation: EU AI Act, NIST AI RMF, ISO/IEC 42001 and Latin American references
QFP
08 — TWO PRODUCTSPreparation program · Certification exam
Preparation program
Preparation program
Program delivered by Quantum Computing Labs
The preparation program is designed and delivered by Quantum Computing Labs, the group's institute for quantum computing and artificial intelligence. It is in design: its calendar, format and price will be published once the Institute approves them. It will cover the full syllabus of the certification exam — the six domains — and will include mock exams built with the same recipe as the exam, together with quantum simulation labs. The program and the exam are two separate products with two fees: those who complete the program receive the program certificate; the Quantum Financial Professional (QFP™) credential is earned only by passing the RiskMathics Certificate Institute exam.
Quantum Financial Professional Program (name to be confirmed)
To be confirmedThe format that covers the full exam syllabus: the six domains, with a quantum simulation laboratory, an LLM sandbox and mock exams. The blueprint contemplates an eight-week intensive course, live online and on demand, with access to IBM Quantum and Amazon Braket, Jupyter notebooks with Qiskit and PennyLane, and LLM sandboxes on open-source models for retrieval-augmentation and fine-tuning exercises. Duration, calendar and price to be confirmed.
- Coverage of the six domains, with the weight each will carry in the exam
- Mock exams built with the exam recipe and with Bloom levels 1, 2 and 3
- Quantum simulation laboratory and LLM sandbox on financial data
- Feedback by domain to guide the weeks before the exam
Program in design. The first exam sitting has no date; the program calendar will be published ahead of it, with enough lead time to cover the full syllabus.
Certification exam
Certification exam
It is built, audited and administered by the RiskMathics Certificate Institute as an independent third party. It may be taken with or without having completed the preparation program. The first sitting is to be confirmed. The Institute's master blueprint defines it as a short certificate: 60 items per form in two forms, under the Institute's single psychometric rulebook (difficulty and discrimination of every item, exposure control per candidate and a cut score by modified Angoff); the blueprint adds differential item functioning analysis across languages. ISO/IEC 17024 accreditation is a blueprint target and is not presented as obtained.
If the candidate does not pass
The Certification Board is defining the failure and retake policy: how many attempts each window allows, the minimum wait between them and the fee for sitting the exam again. It is published here as soon as it is approved; in the meantime, the figures may be requested at growth@riskmathics.com. Exam governance →
Items are written at levels 1, 2 and 3 of Bloom's taxonomy: remember, understand and apply. Each form follows a fixed recipe by domain and by level, so that two candidates face the same demand. The common module on model governance and artificial intelligence requires at least 30 % of its items at level 3: machine learning validation cases, reading SHAP output, and risk classification under the EU AI Act. Bloom's Taxonomy →
QFP
09 — MOCK EXAMSMock exams
Mock exams reproduce the exam recipe: the same distribution by domain and by Bloom level, the same length and the same item type. They are not a review; they are a rehearsal under real conditions.
They are built from the Institute's item bank at Bloom levels 1, 2 and 3 and administered under the same exposure control as the exam. Results are reported by domain: the candidate knows whether the problem lies in quantum algorithms, in post-quantum cryptography or in model validation, and where to concentrate the weeks that remain.
- Format and length identical to one exam form: 60 items
- Feedback by domain and by Bloom level
- Included in the preparation program; availability for candidates who sit the exam without the program is to be confirmed
QFP
10 — PATHLearning path
- Phase 1
Quantum foundationsTo be confirmed
Qubits, gates and circuits; what changes relative to classical computing; vendors and the hardware roadmap; first circuits in Qiskit.
- Phase 2
Algorithms and laboratoryTo be confirmed
Amplitude estimation, quantum Monte Carlo and portfolio optimization with QUBO, VQE and QAOA; exercises on simulators and cloud hardware; the quantum advantage assessment framework.
- Phase 3
Post-quantum cryptography and language modelsTo be confirmed
FIPS 203, 204 and 205, cryptographic inventory and migration plan; deploying language models with retrieval augmentation and fine-tuning over financial documents.
- Phase 4
Model governance, validation and artificial intelligenceTo be confirmed
SR 11-7 and PRA SS1/23, validation of machine learning models, explainability, the EU AI Act and the NIST AI RMF: the common module this certification owns.
- Phase 5
Mock exams and certification examTo be confirmed
A rehearsal with the exam recipe, feedback by domain, and the RiskMathics Certificate Institute exam at its first sitting.
Investment
11Program and exam, priced separately
Fees in US dollars plus the tax applicable in the country of billing. Program and exam are contracted separately; neither figure includes the other.
QFP
12 — FAQFrequently asked questions
When can the exam be taken?
The date of the first sitting is to be confirmed. While the certification is in development there is no open enrollment; anyone who wishes to receive the calendar, the call for candidates and notice of the program opening may request information at growth@riskmathics.com. The exam may be taken with or without having completed the preparation program.
Does it carry regulatory recognition?
No. Quantum Financial Professional (QFP™) certifies knowledge and competence; it is not endorsed by any regulator. The Institute's recognition before CONSAR and the CNSF belongs to the active derivatives and structured products certifications, and this certification does not inherit it.
How does it differ from Machine Learner Certification™?
They are two complementary certifications. Machine Learner Certification™ runs from the mathematics of machine learning to AI systems in production, across fourteen modules and three levels, and expressly excludes quantum computing. Quantum Financial Professional (QFP™) houses quantum computing applied to finance, the Qiskit laboratory, post-quantum cryptography and applied language models, and owns the common module on model governance, validation and artificial intelligence.
Is quantum physics or programming required?
Eligibility requirements are to be confirmed. The body of knowledge does not require a graduate degree in physics: it starts from the foundations and reaches the Qiskit laboratory; the blueprint aims its foundation level at analysts and data professionals with zero to three years of experience. Working knowledge of Python, linear algebra and probability is an advantage; the preparation program reviews them.
How does it relate to the CAIQF in the blueprint?
The Quantum Computing Labs blueprint used the working designation CAIQF, Certified AI & Quantum Finance Professional, with three levels running from machine learning foundations to strategic leadership. The Institute reformulated it as a short certificate, without Levels II and III, under the name Quantum Financial Professional (QFP™); deep machine learning is examined in Machine Learner Certification™. The domains and topics on this page come from that blueprint and from the Institute's master blueprint.
Does it require continuing education?
The blueprint proposes the shortest continuing education cycle in the portfolio: 18 months, with mandatory credits and a mandatory update module in every cycle, because it estimates the half-life of knowledge in artificial intelligence and quantum computing at 12 to 18 months. Final credits, fees and calendar are to be confirmed and will be published with the call for candidates.
Quantum Financial Professional (QFP™)
Banks already fund quantum computing; the judgment to use it is scarce.