Speakers at a webinar said blockchain technology has the potential to impact all recordkeeping processes, including the way transactions are initiated, processed, authorized, recorded, and reported.
Changes in business models and business processes may impact back-office activities such as financial reporting and tax preparation.
Experts made the observations at a virtual webinar on ‘Blockchain: New dimension for audit profession’ organised by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh (ICAB) on Sunday, ICAB said in a statement on Monday.
They said both the role and skill set of auditors may change as new blockchain-based techniques and procedures emerge. The independent auditors will need to understand blockchain technology as it is implemented at client sites, whether clients are pursuing blockchain business opportunities, implementing blockchain business applications, or applying blockchain in accounting, etc.
National Skills Development Authority (NSDA) Executive Chairman Dulal Krishna Saha was present as the chief guest while ICAB President Mahmudul Hasan Khusru delivered the address of welcome.
ICAB former president and Grant Thornton Consulting Bangladesh Ltd. Managing Director Dewan Nurul Islam moderated the session as session chairman while Purushothaman KG (Puru), Partner and National Sector Leader, Telecommunications, KPMG in India presented the keynote paper.
NSDA Executive Chairman Dulal Krishna Saha said the government is trying to create freelancing jobs on ICT where talented youths will have the opportunity to earn money. He also informed that a national skill development competition will be held soon to make aware of the NSDA’s program.
Blockchain is a public digital ledger that will reduce operational cost, bring reliability and data authenticity, he said, adding NSDA and Bangladesh Computer Council are jointly working on some IT applications including blockchain. The technology-based social transformation of the country is mainly led by country’s GDP growth rate, which is imperative to national development, he further said.
ICAB President Mahmudul Hasan Khusru said, “The most obvious changes of the current Covid-19 pandemic are the infusion of data-enabled services into ever more aspects of life. We must embrace this change, otherwise, we will be overwhelmed by it.”
Blockchain is a system of recording information in a way that makes it difficult or impossible to change, hack, or cheat the system. It is essentially a digital ledger of transactions that is duplicated and distributed across the entire network of computer systems. It is an accounting technology that will change the whole spectrum of the accounting profession. It is concerned with the transfer of ownership of assets, and maintaining a ledger of accurate financial information, he added.
Khusru said it has the potential to enhance the accounting profession by reducing the costs of maintaining and reconciling ledgers, and providing absolute certainty over the ownership and history of assets.
In his speech, Purushothaman KG said, “A blockchain solution, when combined with appropriate data analytics, could help with the transactional level assertions involved in an audit, and the auditor’s skills would be better spent considering higher-level questions.”
Citing from research, he said more than 300 million blockchain transactions were processed through the end of 2017. Blockchain's market size was just $708 million in 2017, but it's expected to skyrocket to $60.7 billion by 2024.
