Mainstream financial and government institutions have begun embracing blockchain and cryptocurrencies recently. PricewaterhouseCoopers is one such institution, with the auditing giant very open about getting into the space over the past few months. PwC is in the news again after PwC Luxembourg recently announced in a press release that it would start accepting payments made using cryptocurrencies from clients beginning from 1 October, 2019.
The move was welcomed by executives at the firm, with Thomas Campione, Director, Blockchain & Crypto-assets Leader at PwC Luxembourg commenting,
“We could not continue to invest in the field, promote it, build solutions for clients and support their transformation while not also being exposed to it.”
The Luxembourg division claims to believe that the underlying technology behind cryptocurrencies will soon be a standard in the economy, and PwC plans to emerge as an early adopter. PwC Luxembourg also claims that this move follows the growing demands of the market, with many of their clients wanting to offer a secure payment alternative that evolves with the economy.
PwC Luxembourg added that the firm has carefully reviewed its internal policies and protocols to meet crypto-industry standards, while closely collaborating with a local, regulated exchange. A statement from John Parkhouse, Territory Senior Partner and CEO of PwC Luxembourg, said,
“Upskilling will be key and the capacity to build and grow the ecosystem will be at least as important to harvest the true benefits of the technology.”
However, PwC isn’t the first division to accept Bitcoin as payments from clients. In fact, PwC’s Hong Kong office was the first to do so way back in 2017.
This announcement from PwC Luxembourg is their first step towards building a set of proprietary PwC-branded blockchain products globally. This includes a crypto-auditing tool that PwC International launched a few months back. It should be noted that despite the fact that PwC Luxembourg is a member firm of PwC International Ltd., it is a seperate legal entity.
