Scaling up Indian firms to create a Big Four: ICAI President highlights need for regulatory benefits, technology and finance

Expressing confidence that Indian firms can come together to scale up and create a domestic Big Four entity, Charanjot Singh Nanda, President, The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India said that they require support in five key areas.

“Regulatory benefits such as permitting domestic CA firms to advertise, technology and finance to scale up, a change in mindset and training and capacity building are essential to help Indian firms to scale up,” he said on Sunday.  

Indian CA firms have limited global visibility and have a lack of institutional branding, an ICAI official noted, adding that CA firms cannot have their own specific logos for personal branding. They also can not have an international name or branding as per ICAI regulations.

They are also primarily partner funded and have limited avenues for capital infusion as against large global firms. Adoption of technology is also a challenge and high cost and limited scale hinder digital integration and development of proprietary platforms.

Similarly if government tenders mandate having atleast one Indian CA firm, it would provide more support to Indian firms. “No one is against the Big Four but if there is more equitable distribution of work, it will create opportunities for all,” noted the official.

Amendments in the Companies’ Act, 2013 to help in setting up multidisciplinary firms would also be beneficial.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India is working with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs and is providing inputs to take forward the government’s blueprint to scale up home grown firms to create a domestic Big Four. “We are in regular touch with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs and are providing inputs on every issue whether it is growth of firms, audits or technology,” said Nanda, adding that it has also given a report to the ministry recently.

As part of the Aatmanirbhar Bharat push, the Prime Minister’s Office has been working on a strategy to scaling up domestic firms on the lines of the Global Big Four on consulting and auditing to create a multi disciplinary firm that would have various services including accounting, auditing, assurance, legal services, company secretarial work and cost record maintenance. The top global Big Four firms include PwC, Deloitte, EY and KPMG.

A meeting was also held in the PMO recently to review the regulatory changes required for this and the ministry of corporate affairs had recently issued a draft report on setting up multi disciplinary firms and has also constituted Inter-ministerial Group on developing the domestic ecosystem of consulting and auditing firms.

The ICAI President said that all stakeholders are largely on board with the plan and while there are some concerns, the MCA is working on it to ensure that there is a successful outcome.

The ICAI is also working on a digital platform to help domestic firms in professional networking and explore mergers and partnerships with verified data on CA firms.

The ICAI’s Committee for Aggregation of CA firms is also working on draft guidelines for international networks, which is expected to be placed before the Council either end of this year or in early 2026. The committee is also reviewing the guidelines for networking of Indian CA firms and also the guidelines in corporate forms of practice. These are also expected to help CA firms scale up.

 

Gensol, IndusInd Bank reports:

 

Nanda further said that the probe into audits of Gensol Engineering and IndusInd Bank will be completed at the earliest.

The Financial Reporting Review Board of the ICAI had begun investigations into the audit reports of these two entities to look into any lapses that may have taken place after financial irregularities were reported at the two firms.

It is expected that the FRRB’s investigations would be completed by early 2026 but Nanda did not comment on when it would be completed.