Financial and consulting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), has brought in Patrick Spens, a former hedge fund founder and regulator at the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority, to aid the company in exploring the application of blockchains in government, society and the financial sector.

“The potential for blockchain, the technology that powers the crypto-currency Bitcoin, to provide secure storage and distribution solutions is already seen to have far-reaching implications for the financial services industry.”

According to the press release, Spens will join PwC’s rapidly growing fintech research group, which already includes 15 researchers and experts in distributed ledger technologies. Patrick Spence has 30 years of experience working in the financial sphere. In 2005, he founded a hedge fund called Copenhagen Capital, and he also worked as Head of Equity trading at Citigroup for EMEA.

PwC will also leverage Spens’ prior experience to try and tackle existing societal problems using the novel technology.

“PwC has hired Patrick to lead work on the opportunities and challenges blockchain presents for clients across all industries and sectors and, indeed, its potential to tackle major societal issues.”

According to PwC’s estimates, the demand for distributed ledger-based solutions in a variety of industries will increase dramatically in the coming years, and that is why the company is continuing to expand in this field, “We anticipate growing demand from right across our client base for help understanding the implications and potential applications of blockchain, and Patrick is one of the UK’s leading blockchain experts.” said Michael Rendell, Leader of transformation and innovation at PwC.

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