PwC In China Pushes Into World Of Blockchain

Tom Burroughes

2 December 2016

PwC China has signed a joint business relationship with BitSE, a Shanghai-based blockchain start-up, following on from its strategic partnership with Blockstream, highlighting how this part of the fintech space is expanding, according to media reports.

BitSE has, meanwhile, officially launched VeChain, a cloud product management platform built on a blockchain, according to the Nasdaq news feed. VeChain focuses on anti-counterfeiting, supply chain management, asset management and client experience.

Blockchain is a distributed, peer-to-peer ledger enabling transfer of data and has been associated, for example, with the rise of the bitcoin digital currency. The banking and wealth management industry has warmed to blockchain for its ability to handle auditable transfer of data and provide a form of straight-through processing of information long sought in the industry. (To view recent articles about developments in this space, see here and here.)

“Together, we aim to be the first professional services team to enable adoption of blockchain business solutions in Asia-Pacific for financial services, governments and other industry clients,” PwC China fintech partner William Gee was quoted by the Coindesk website as saying.

“Although the market acceptance of blockchain and the pace of R&D has been a bit slower in China than in Western countries, we believe that by teaming up with PwC we can speed up research into and the use of blockchain in the Asia-Pacific market,” BitSE chief technology officer Shuai Chu said.

BitSE was created in 2013 to concentrate on blockchain technology and applications.