With over 70% of Spanish households using digital banking, the report highlights that the "invisible" network infrastructure is now the main guarantor of customer confidence and market stability.
Technical infrastructure for uninterrupted operation
The competitive advantages of dedicated connectivity solutions over shared alternatives, as detailed in Aire's whitepaper, are:
DWDM (Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing): This allows for the leasing of specific wavelengths within a single fiber, achieving extremely high-capacity data transport with exceptionally low latencies (less than 0.05 ms).
Point-to-Point (P2P) Connectivity: This offers a dedicated link between two locations (such as headquarters and data centers) with guaranteed bandwidth and no external traffic that could cause congestion.
Layer 1 Encryption: Given the sensitivity of banking data, these connections allow for AES encryption directly on the optical signal without increasing latency.
Critical Business Scenarios: Where connectivity is a matter of survival
The technical study identifies three critical areas where the absence of dedicated links and DWDM technology not only affects performance, but also puts the very viability of the entity at risk in the event of service failures or legal non-compliance:
Instant payments (SEPA Instant): Regulations require transfers to be completed in under 10 seconds, 24 hours a day. This is only possible with low-latency links that enable communication between banks and clearing houses in milliseconds.
High-frequency trading: In this sector, every millisecond of delay can translate into losses of up to $100 million annually for large institutions. Ultra-low latency DWDM routes are essential to maintain competitiveness in order execution. Business Continuity (BCP/DRP): Institutions need to replicate massive volumes of data between geographically dispersed data centers. Technological advancements now allow for 100 Gbps links with the ability to scale up to 800 Gbps per wavelength to meet the most stringent recovery objectives.
Resilience as a Legal Requirement:
Investing in resilient networks has ceased to be a technical decision and has become a legal obligation. The DORA (Digital Operational Resilience Act), applicable since January 2025, requires financial institutions to have ICT risk management frameworks that guarantee operational continuity even in the face of system failures or cyberattacks.
In the words of Zigor Gaubeca, CIO of Aire and contributor to the report, “Having robust infrastructures allows institutions to comply with supervisors (ECB and EBA) and, simultaneously, avoid reputational damage from service outages at critical times.”
The Future: Quantum computing is getting closer, and security agencies in governments, banking, and other critical sectors are preparing for this new scenario of information risks, such as HNDL (Harvest Now Decrypt Later), which, as its name suggests, involves stealing data today and decrypting it later.
There are two main approaches:
QKD (Quantum Key Distribution): Based on quantum mechanics (e.g., photons), it allows detection of whether a key has been intercepted based on physical laws. It requires special infrastructure (dedicated fiber optic cable or DWDM) and is limited in distance (300 km with current technology).
PQC (Post-Quantum Cryptography): Cryptographic algorithms designed to work on current classical computers, but which quantum computers cannot easily break. It can be implemented in software, making it more scalable and easier to deploy. Aire's whitepaper makes it clear that operational resilience is not just a technical objective, but an unavoidable legal requirement under the new DORA framework. The implementation of DWDM networks and P2P connectivity is positioned as the most strategic investment for entities seeking to secure their operations, guarantee compliance with the ECB, and ensure their competitiveness in a financial market that no longer allows for even a millisecond of error.
