PwC Partners BitSE to Expedite Blockchain Rollout in China, Hong Kong
PwC continues to ramp up its blockchain offerings with a new partnership in China. PwC brings credibility and size to the table while BitSE brings blockchain specific knowledge.
PwC recently announced a partnership with BitSE in order to accelerate the adoption of blockchain in China and Hong Kong. BitSE is a Shanghai-based startup founded by ex-IBM, Louis Vuitton, and Alibaba employees and is billed as one of the leaders in the blockchain as a service (BaaS) model. And of course, PwC is one of the world leaders in consulting services for some of the largest companies on the planet.
Slower Adoption
Although blockchain has been gaining serious traction in the United States and Europe, Asia has been slower to adopt the burgeoning tech. The adoption pace of blockchain has certainly not been helped by the ambiguous stance that China has taken in the matter of Bitcoin.
BitSE CTO Shuai Chu says of the partnership in the area,
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 China and Hong Kong market
A Large Market
The marketplace in China and Hong Kong is clearly massive. From healthcare to financial settlement processing there are many large players in the region that are no doubt interested in exploring blockchain. With PwC’s market connectivity and resources, and BitSE’s knowledge of blockchain this may turn out to be a fruitful arrangement. Nonetheless, one gets the sense that this partnership is quite exploratory at this stage.
According to both groups, the partnership already has a few customers in the pipeline. It will be interesting to see the first couple of customers that officially adopt the technology.
Featured image from Shutterstock.
