Deloitte Expands Into Southeast Asia with Practical Smarts
One of the Big Four world accounting firms, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (Deloitte) and their colleagues from Singapore, Practical Smarts, decided to consolidate in terms of Deloitte risk advisory practice, with Practical Smarts becoming a part of Deloitte Asia Pacific Blockchain Lab.
The Lab will be headed by a joint team of Practical Smarts co-founders, Andrew Koay and Stanley Yong, with a focus on increasing Deloitte’s expertise in:
- Blockchain advisory services
- Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT)
According to Deloitte Asia Pacific’s blockchain lab leader, Dr. Paul Sin, the idea of Blockchain Lab came with the growing demand of the Southeast Asian market in blockchain experts that stimulates the elaboration of new solutions and working groups. Both team leaders have prior experience in this field, as Koay has already headed a blockchain technology and investment holding company Singapore Exchange Limited, and Young worked as the global head of central bank digital currency solutions at IBM for two years.
For now, the Lab will actively collaborate with regional organizations to implement blockchain-based solutions for governance, regulatory, settlement and enforceability issues. Together with business development and expertise increasing, Blockchain Lab will develop a series of educational programs, focused on talent training in the fields of cybersecurity and digital security.
This cooperation of two regional experts in blockchain-based solutions will help Deloitte in strengthening their skills in cybersecurity and digital assurance, implementing solutions elaborated by Practical Smarts to secure transfer protocols and digital assets transfer over a distributed network. The exceptional importance of secure digital asset transfer has been additionally highlighted by Deloitte Southeast Asia’s CEO, Philip Yuen.
Rapidly moving forward with this ambitious project, both Koay and Young have underlined that the blockchain services gain a new level of interest and demand in the Asian region, impacting various industries and spheres of business. Thus, the Lab will be a perfect response to the growing number of startups, specializing in blockchain technology.
