As part of digitalizing itself, the multinational accounting firm giant Ernst & Young will now be the first of its kind to be accepting Bitcoin payments for its services.

This move of letting EY employees embrace the cryptocurrency is for the up coming developments which will be critical for EY clients, thus employees should have a better understanding in implementing these solutions.

EY on Bitcoin & Blockchain

Ernst & Young perceive Bitcoin and the Blockchain technology as an essential part in the future of the digital economy. They decided to join some leading Swiss organizations in transforming financial services to consider Bitcoin revolution. As one of the world’s Big Four professional services networks, EY has been the biggest institution to embrace the cryptoworld. Partnering with many other organizations, EY aims to provide its clients the best way in transitioning to the digital world.

EY considers the Blockchain technology as the “Right technology, at the right time”. It means that with the data and security challenges today, tradional institutional practices should be replaced with this tamper-proof distributed ledgers.

The Challenges

However, Ernst & Young sees challenges in reaching their goals. Although they see blockchain as a “potential-rich”, they still see it as an immature technology and too slow to scale. They do not expect a lot of Bitcoin payments for its services after the launch. Companies and individuals still prefers to use the traditional currency. At the same time, if the price of Bitcoin is expected to increase, then Bitcoin payments will be less most probably.

Nevertheless, there is still a need for Bitcoin and Blockchain startups and adopting institutions to imagine, experiment, evaluate research and development programs for the technology to succeed. As the blockchain technology is fast arising and staking claim in the financial sector, EY said it is time for companies to identify opportunities, assess risks and schedule their entries in order to take position before everything is too late.

Overall, EY benefits from having its employees understand Bitcoin and Blockchain but enabling Bitcoin payments does not provide any immediate and direct benefit to the economy, not until the future. However, when it comes to Switzerlands stance as a Bitcoin and Blockchain hub, EY is definitely a huge boost to Bitcoin adoption and digital transformation of the financial industry.