Creating domestic 'Big Four':
ICAI developing digital platform to facilitate CA firm mergers, tie-ups
Sep 9, 2025
Synopsis
The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India plans to launch a digital platform. It will help accounting firms network and merge. This initiative aims to create larger Indian firms. These firms can compete with the Big Four. The platform will support resource sharing and expansion. It will especially benefit CAs in remote areas.
The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) is working on a “strategic digital platform” that would facilitate professional networking and help thousands of accounting firms explore mergers and tie-ups to grow in size.
ICAI president Charanjot Singh Nanda told ET that the networking portal will be a crucial step in facilitating the creation of large home-grown firms akin to the Big Four, in sync with the government’s vision.
The Big Four—EY, Deloitte, KPMG and PwC—along with Grant Thornton and BDO, currently dominate the Indian audit ecosystem, with their affiliates having handled assignments of 326 of the 486 Nifty-500 companies as of March 2025, according to a primeinfobase.com report.
The ICAI portal will help accounting firms—especially the small and mid-sized ones--share resources, leverage complementary strengths and expand practice areas and service offerings.
A key objective of the portal is to “bridge geographical and informational gaps, particularly benefiting chartered accountants in remote areas”, Nanda said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had earlier called for the creation of at least four large domestic firms that would be counted among the world’s top eight.
In June, the Prime Minister’s Office held a meeting to deliberate on creating a system where CA firms would be encouraged to pursue expansion.
Nanda said the institute is also in the process of finalising its overseas networking guidelines for domestic CA firms. The guidelines will enable domestic CA firms to tie up with their global peers and set up units in India, ET earlier reported.
He listed out other steps taken by the apex accountants’ body to enable domestic accounting firms to build scale. It has introduced guidelines on merger and demerger of CA firms, and on aggregation of limited liability partnerships to encourage consolidation and resource sharing.
It’s also firming up new models to simplify various processes relating to the CA profession.
Level-playing field
Nanda called for creating a level playing field for small and mid-sized accounting firms, through appropriate government policies, in public sector audits, capacity building and technology adoption, among others.
Most Indian CA firms fall under the so-called small-and-medium-practice category and they “grapple with limitations in funding, digital infrastructure and institutional support”, he said.
Competitive disadvantages also stem from “unequal tendering conditions by agencies and financial institutions” that are often designed in a way that inadvertently excludes smaller domestic firms, Nanda said.
He said the institute is finalising its overseas networking guidelines for domestic CA firms. The guidelines will enable domestic CA firms to tie up with their global peers and set up units in India, ET earlier reported.
[The Economic Times]
