One of the world’s largest auditing firms PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), announced today June 19, that its Halo auditing tools have been expanded to provide assurance services for companies involved in cryptocurrency transactions.
The firm has added a new software tool to its portfolio so that it can now provide audit and other assurance services to crypto clients. The firm will work with clients that either own or transact in nine digital assets namely Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold, Bitcoin Diamond, LiteCoin, Ethereum, ERC20 – OAX token, and Ripple (XRP).
The Halo solution will help provide independent and substantive proof of “private key and public address pairing”. These are one of the items needed to establish cryptocurrency ownership, as well as “securely interrogate the blockchain” in order to gather information about blockchain balances and transactions.
PwC Growing Interest in Cryptocurrency
Speaking on the development, James Chalmers, Global Assurance Leader, stated: “It is important as companies continue to digitise we, as auditors, keep up with technology changes in the market, continue to develop audit tools that meet the needs of emerging technologies and serve the changing and developing demands of our stakeholders.”
The firm also added that it was working with other external companies to help them solve the challenges and harness the opportunities of blockchain and cryptocurrency.
According to the statement: “Our ability to audit an entity engaged in cryptocurrency activities is very much influenced by our client’s control environment, and at this stage, by the breadth of tokens supported by our Halo software. These considerations will be key when determining whether we are comfortable to accept an audit engagement.”
