Accounting fraud: Blockchain to the rescue
Rather than trying to patch up the auditing profession, could blockchain replace the way audits are managed?
Blockchain, the decentralised distributed ledger system that records transactions, could have prevented the Steinhoff accounting scandal and nipped public sector corruption in the bud, says Monica Singer, a former World Bank consultant and director at the SA Institute of Chartered Accountants. "For the first time in history, we have a technology that allows us to imagine a world that’s transparent and without corruption," says Singer in her new capacity as an ambassador for New York-based blockchain company ConsenSys, which powers the ethereum cryptocurrency. Blockchain, the system that enables cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin to operate, is being used in a number of other sectors, and could even be applied to auditing.SA’s auditing industry is not exactly in the public’s good books — to put it mildly — and it will take some time, or a drastic change, to win back lost credibility. Bernard Agulhas, CEO of the Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors (Irba), says the past 11 months h...
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