KPMG LLP has opted to grow it’s blockchain strategy across the board to include Audit, Advisory and Industries, by announcing a new US leadership team as part on an approach to offer businesses comprehensive guidance from strategy to implementation on blockchain.
One of the four largest financial services firms in the world, collectively known as “The Big Four”, KPMG’s announcement named Arun Ghosh as the firm’s blockchain leader, with David Jarczyk and Erich Braun as tax leader and audit leader respectively.
The news comes just over a month after a report from KPMG, released on 31st july , found that blockchain investment in the first half of 2018 exceeded 2017’s overall total.
The report by KPMG also suggested that blockchain technology’s “moving beyond experimentation” had attracted investor attention through the first and second quarter of 2018.
The firm’s strategy is to combine financial management, digital transformation and proficiency to help usinesses in navigating the complexities of tax and trade, regulation, auditability as well as the risk and compliance implications that come along with the industry.
First of the “Big Four”
With companies now moving into the “execution phase” with blockchain technology, KPMG has taken the first step, ahead of its Big Four rivals Ernst & Young, PwC and Deloitte, with the press release explaining the significance of the new operation:
It is much more than a technology, serving as a global transaction platform that requires an intimate knowledge of tax, global trade tariffs, financial risk implications, and core operations.
According to KPMG, the firm has a force of dedicated blockchain specialists deployed in 30 countries across the globe working with companies in multiple sectors, such as financial services, industrial manufacturing, healthcare and life sciences, retail and telecommunications, to name a few.
As more companies look into the world of blockchain to find and keep up with innovations, KPMG seems to be setting a bold precedent for the financial services industry as a whole.
Featured Image Credit: KPMG London by “Håkan Dahlström Photography” via Flickr; licensed under “CC BY 2.0”
