Conversations with a Chartered Accountant on Blockchain

The Making of Hard Fork — ‘Women in Blockchain’ — Featuring Aanchal Thakur

In our previous article on this topic –The Fairer Side of Blockchain — we stated the intent to bring to light the amazing work and contribution of women thought leaders in the Blockchain space. When we started off on the plan for this new special series of our TV show, our thoughts hinged on being able to find some of these women in Blockchain who are creating and building value in the world of blockchain.

We were happy to see that there are many women leaders, entrepreneurs, and professionals who are not only taking an avid interest in the technology but also working on building companies, products, services, businesses in it. Many of them are mentoring other aspiring women entrepreneurs; it is encouraging to see so many more women getting inspired by their peers and coming forward to embrace this tech.

Women in Blockchain — Ep 1 — The Changing role of Chartered Accountants and other things

In our first episode of this special series, we invited a lady who is a chartered accountant by profession and who has spent the past couple of years in understanding this technology and is creating a niche for herself in this arena.

This is not the first time that we have had a conversation with a Chartered Accountant. We invited Anoush Bhasin to the show too in our Season 1. While Anoush enlightened us with the taxation paradigm, some questions remained unanswered.

• How do you think the role of a chartered accountant will change in the times to come?
• With the impending regulatory uncertainty in India, what should those startups — which do not want to leave the country and still be in the Blockchain space — do?
• How stringent are the FATF rules for crypto?
• How would FATF implementation affect crypto businesses worldwide?
• Will FATF and other such regulations promote ease of doing crypto business globally?

The Special Guest for this episode

Aanchal Thakur is the Managing partner of DayOrg Consulting Group, which provides strategic, financial and legal consulting to organizations in disruptive technologies. She is a Chartered Accountant by profession and is also a qualified Information Systems Auditor from ICAI.

She is a certified Blockchain consultant and is representing a couple of international Blockchain projects as their ambassador in India. Aanchal speaks and contributes regularly on various forums on Blockchain technology, use cases and the regulatory environment around the same.

Our conversation

Aanchal has an experience of almost a decade in technology companies and core knowledge of accounting policies and processes not only from India but also from other countries. She is very well-read on the current state of affairs related to the crypto regulations from other countries. There are many financial authorities around the world that are actively working in this field and one of them is FATF — the Financial Action Task Force.

It was interesting to know her beginnings and journey into Blockchain technology from an investment scheme where she did lose some money, but the knowledge she gathered from this encounter made her a Blockchain enthusiast and later a pro.

She was very vocal about the fact that the chartered accountant or any other professional related to finance, laws, and policies, need to know and understand tech and the way things work. If not, the redundancy will creep in fast and the person might just miss the bus. She also highlighted that there has been a sea change in the mindsets of her fraternity.

People are now coming out of their comfort zones and taking part in the change. The Institute of Chartered Accountant is also conducting regular training programs for its members, to introduce them to the intricacies of Blockchain and crypto.

Some challenges and suggestions

She however mentioned and suggested that the chartered accountancy curriculum now needs to change and introduce Blockchain and other emerging technologies as part of the studies. This is an interesting message for industry-wide adoption. Instead of doing a post-qualification introduction to Blockchain, make the Blockchain education part and parcel of the regular studies and also the examination that the ICAI conducts.

It was also very intriguing to know a few things like how FATF rules will apply to us all and the logistical challenges. While the FATF has laid out some guidelines for the regulation of cryptocurrencies/assets, it does not force any country to adopt it or implement it. Moreover, the way inter-country information sharing works these days, procuring any data from a country may take days or even months.

This challenge will become more pronounced, when the data needs to be shared in real-time, from different time zones and from different sources. Acquiring Blockchain-based credible financial information /data sharing between countries for forensic and regulatory use, can become even more tedious and, probably an implementation nightmare for technologists and policymakers.

About this special show — Hard Fork Specials

Hard Fork Specials is a shorter version of our talk show which we will undertake from time to time. These short and special series of episodes will highlight either a burning or important topic, a new technology, special set of people or something special to showcase the Crypto and Blockchain scene in India as well as overseas.

Currently, we are focused on some important themes, Women in Blockchain being the first one of them.

• Watch the Season 1 here: https://bit.ly/2JPTWJ3
• Email: editor@founderindia.com | Hardforktalkshow@gmail.com
• Follow us: Twitter | Instagram

About the Channel — founderINDIA

founderINDIA is a new-age business media startup platform for Startups & Young Businesses, from the house of Green Cheese Media. The brand has launched India’s first TALK TV Channel that hosts a bouquet of talk shows covering several issues, genres, beats, sectors, and industries.

• Web: www.founderindia.com
• Email: editor@founderindia.com
• Follow: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | LinkedIn

Watch this episode on founderINDIA

This episode is being broadcast on Amazon Fire TV on the founderINDIA channel. It is also being simulcast on YouTube and Facebook thus ensuring a wide audience.

Here is the YouTube link to the video:

Please leave a comment, like it, subscribe to the channel and share it with like-minded people and beyond. We would love to hear genuine feedback from our viewers about the episode. Write to us at hardforktalkshow@gmail.com and editor@founderindia.com.