PwC China has entered into a business relationship with a Shanghai-based blockchain start-up BitSE to bring blockchain technology to the Asia Pacific market through one-stop solutions.

Under the alliance, the companies will create a 50-strong team of specialists and provide one-stop, innovative blockchain solutions.

At the signing ceremony, Jim Woods, PwC’s Risk & Regulatory Services Leader for Asia Pacific, said that the blockchain technology will change the way business is conducted across many industries, particularly Financial Services.

“Blockchain is a disruptive technology. Just as the Internet has had a revolutionary impact on culture and commerce since it first emerged for wide-scale use in the mid-1990s, Blockchain is going to be similarly transformative”, he said. “Our alliance with BitSE will ensure that we supplement PwC’s market leadership position with a deep technical capability to help our clients design and implement innovative blockchain solutions.”

PwC and BitSE are working closely with several local financial institutions to explore and develop plans to implement blockchain applications in near future. PwC China Fintech Partner William Gee said that the goal is to become the first professional services team to enable adoption of blockchain business solutions in Asia Pacific for financial services, governments and other industry clients.

“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 Asia Pacific market,” said BitSE CTO Shuai Chu.

Earlier in February, PwC teamed up with blockchain-based startup company Blockstream, in a move to bring blockchain technology and services to companies around the world. It also appointed a new team comprising of 15 leading technology experts who will explore and commercialise blockchain.

Established in 2013, BitSE is focusing on the blockchain technology to make innovations in industries. In 2014, it focused on digital assets business, participated and leaded many innovation projects in blockchain industry. Last year, the company initiated a research lab for the blockchain and started researching in distributed consensus, DAPP and smart contracts.