There is some very interesting news today on Coindesk: KPMG, one of the Big Four accountancy giants has issued a press release announcing that it is joining the Wall Street Blockchain Alliance (WSBA). WSBA is a non-profit trading association and adding KPMG as a corporate member will provide a boost to mainstream belief in blockchain.
Eamonn Maguire, who is the global leader of KPMG’s digital ledger services said that he believed the blockchain was maturing and that it will have a dramatic impact on the financial industry. KPMG plans to use its position in WSBA as a board director to “facilitate the growth and adoption of distributed ledger technology across all financial markets.”
Other members of WSBA include BlockEx, Blockchain Intelligence Group and Calypso amongst others. This is KPMG’s latest consortium membership; last year it launched a blockchain services suite with Microsoft to explore this industry further and it has been making statements about how the technology can impact its clients in the future.
Its blockchain service suite consists of tools designed to help banks and other financial services firms build with blockchain in a compliant way. In September 2016 when KPMG launched the service, Maguire said the suite was designed to, “include “full life-cycle support” of blockchain application development, which means the firm is offering a range of services, from business case development to systems and operations integration.”
KPMG is busy training up staff to work specifically with blockchain. It began with about 80 specialists at its New York offices, but now has doubled that number and has a formidable global team, including a data and analytics group focusing on coding and development in support of proofs of concept, prototyping and integration of blockchain capabilities.
Where does KPMG see blockchain going? Eamonn Maguire is on record saying: “Eventually, we see the blockchain as a platform for the provision of services. We will get to the point where auditors and regulators will use the blockchain to perform their analysis.”
WSBA is very pleased to have KPMG on board and for others in the blockchain industry it surely signposts a future where more corporate entities accept and promote blockchain-based activities and products.