TL;DR Breakdown
- Deloitte, EY, PwC, and KPMG have asked their employees and partners to disclose all crypto investments.
- The disclosure should also include investments made by family members.
- The disclosure is important as these firms are actively working with the RBI.
The four largest global accounting firms have asked their employees, partners, and executives to disclose all cryptocurrency investments made in 2021. Deloitte, EY (Ernst & Young), KPMG, and PwC has emphasized that this disclosure should also include crypto investments made by their family and household members.
In the official disclosure call, the firms have defined crypto investments as any investment made in crypto assets, NFT, and DeFi protocols. This disclosure will now be a part of the firm’s annual risk-assessment process. Deloitte and PwC have further defined the size of the investments, as employees and partners are being told to disclose crypto investments as small as 1 cent (10 INR).
According to a senior partner of one of these firms, the ‘Big 4’ is working on many projects directly in collaboration with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Indian government. The RBI has been relentlessly pushing for strict crypto regulations and even a total ban. As a reason, it’s important for these firms to assess their partners and executives crypto investments.
The firms are even telling their employees to stay away from stablecoin investments such as USDT and USDC. All four of these firms are actively working on many blockchain projects. So, a lot of their tech employees and partners have invested in crypto to understand the technology better.
“I bought a few cryptocurrencies to understand the technology. I had to disclose everything and the firm actually told me to stay away from stablecoins.” – A young tech partner of one of these firms revealed to The Economic Times.
No rule against crypto investments
Although these four firms are strictly encouraging disclosure, none of them is actually barring or banning crypto investments. Some crypto investments might be advised against by the firms due to regulatory pressure, but they can’t legally ban personal investments of any sort.
However, disclosure is an important part of these firms auditing process. Earlier this year, PwC questioned an executive after discovering that her husband made a 10,000 INR worth crypto investment. The compliance department even fined the executive a substantial amount for not disclosing this investment. So, needless to say, it’s wiser for the executives and partners of these firms to disclose every crypto investment they or their family makes.
