One of the world’s largest accounting companies, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), has approved the first bitcoin payment for its advisory services.
PwC now accepts bitcoin as a form of payment in Hong Kong, owing to its clients’ the acceptance of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. According to a Wall Street Journal article, PwC Hong Kong has announced it is partnering with a range of bitcoin and cryptocurrency startups, leading the firm to embrace the world’s most well-known cryptocurrency. PwC has announced that it will begin advising clients on cryptocurrency funds and investments, as well as cryptocurrency exchanges and initial coin offerings (ICOs), a revolutionary new type of fundraising based on cryptocurrencies.
“This decision helps illustrate how we are embracing new technology and incorporating innovative business models across our full range of services,” said PwC Asia-Pacific chairman Raymund Chao.
PwC is the second of the so-called “big four” accounting firms to embrace bitcoin as payment for services. Since the turn of the year, Ernst & Young (EY) in Switzerland has become the first of its kind to embrace bitcoin for both auditing and advisory services. Late last year, EY installed a Bitcoin ATM in one of its offices, providing workers with a digital bitcoin wallet inside the EY wallet app. In late 2016, EY claimed that embracing bitcoin was crucial to the firm’s strategy of “digitizing itself.”
Institutional acceptance of bitcoin as an asset is steadily gaining traction, but not at the same rate as financial institutions’ acceptance of bitcoin as a financial tool.