IBM, in a statement, said its System z mainframe already supports the world's largest banks, retailers and manufacturers -- each day handling more than 80 billion transactions and US$4 trillion worth of credit card purchases, bank deposits and other financial exchanges.

Mainframes, IBM said, already host more than 80 percent of the world's information, which can be exchanged and analyzed to enable banks to seamlessly serve customers via ATMs, call centers, and the Internet.

DiMarzio said IBM's System z mainframe series provide the highest levels of ability of any server in terms of security. 'To the best of our knowledge that mainframe has never been hacked.'