KPMG in Canada adds BTC and ETH to its corporate treasury

Professional services firm KPMG in Canada is allocating bitcoin and ether (ETH) to its corporate treasury, according to a Monday announcement. 

“Cryptoassets are a maturing asset class,” Benjie Thomas, the firm’s Canadian managing partner for advisory services said in a statement. “This investment reflects our belief that institutional adoption of cryptoassets and blockchain technology will continue to grow and become a regular part of the asset mix,” he said.

KPMG acquired Bitcoin and Ethereum on its balance sheet through Gemini, with the two companies exchanging a brief interaction on Twitter this morning.

The firm is also adding carbon offsets to maintain a net-zero carbon transaction to deliver on their ESG commitments, according to the statement.

The firm established a governance committee with stakeholders from Finance, Risk Management, Advisory, and Audit and Tax to provide oversight and approve the treasury allocation. Specialists also assessed the tax and accounting implications of the transaction. 

That KPMG in Canada would move in this direction is perhaps unsurprising, given its suite of crypto-related advisory services. 

“The cryptoasset industry continues to grow and mature and it needs to be considered by financial services and institutional investors,” said Kareem Sadek, KPMG in Canada’s cryptoassets and blockchain services co-leader. “We’ve invested in a strong cryptoassets practice and we will continue to enhance and build on our capabilities across Decentralized Finance (DeFi), Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) and the Metaverse, to name a few. We expect to see a lot of growth in these areas in the years to come.”