Trust

US$1bn

We are continuing to invest US$1 billion over five years to develop our Next Generation Audit platform.

Companies today must earn trust with stakeholders — customers, suppliers, employees, lenders, investors, regulators, and others — on a broad spectrum of issues. Companies must demonstrate rigorous data security, robust risk management, progress on sustainability, action on inclusion and diversity, responsible use of technology, adherence to regulations, and more. The list of topics is long, but to maintain stakeholder support business leaders must show that their company is trustworthy on each.

This year, we have applied our multidisciplinary expertise and objectivity to help companies as they seek to build trust in what matters. We provide robust financial statement audits which enable our clients to earn the trust of stakeholders from investors to policymakers. Trustworthy financial statements provide a foundation of reliable information that enables capital markets, and economies more broadly, to function.

In addition, we help clients earn stakeholder trust in many areas beyond financial statements. For example, this year we have helped clients build strong cloud security, use AI responsibly, protect against risks, demonstrate sustainability performance, and document pay fairness. We serve our clients wherever they need to earn confidence that they are taking trustworthy action.

This year, we have continued to invest US$1 billion over five years to develop our Next Generation Audit platform for our assurance services on financial and broader impact reporting so we are even better able to help our clients build trust in what matters.

“Trust is the foundation of a company’s ability to succeed. Today’s business leaders are expected to build trust with stakeholders in more areas than ever before. We are a unique profession in that we are brought in to tell our clients the truth in an objective way. This helps our clients build trust in what matters, earning stakeholder confidence that they are having an impact where it matters most.”

Wes Bricker
Global Assurance Leader, PwC US

Highlights of our year

Trust Academy Our Trust Academy convened senior executives and thought leaders from across industries to identify opportunities to earn trust and drive better outcomes for business and society. Speakers at the Trust Academy have included prominent world leaders and trust experts from the World Economic Forum and Harvard Business School.

Building trust through global events We have delivered on our purpose to build trust in society through contributing to debates at global events such as the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, APEC CEO Summit, Climate Week NYC, Bloomberg New Economy Forum, FT Moral Money Summits, World Energy Congress and the AI For Good Summit.

Supporting trusted assurance with US$1 billion investment Trusted information is critical to confidence in the financial markets, and it supports regulation by assisting companies to achieve and demonstrate compliance. This year, working with leading technology companies, we continued our multiyear programme of investing US$1 billion to develop our Next Generation Audit platform for our assurance services on financial and broader impact reporting.

Audit quality All PwC firms implemented the most recent international standard for quality management (ISQM1) for their assurance business. In addition, PwC achieved a reduction in the proportion of regulator-inspected engagements with findings by more than the 25% International Forum of Independent Audit Regulators (IFIAR) target over the four-year period of the IFIAR Survey from 2019 to 2023.

Enhancing trust on sustainability We have helped businesses maintain trust by advancing progress on sustainability. We are proud to be recognised this year as a Global Leader in ESG and Sustainability. We have helped clients across the world reduce their emissions. We have supported the world’s transition to clean energy, encouraged urgent action on climate adaptation, and helped to protect the natural world (on which 55% of global GDP depends) through PwC’s Centre for Nature Positive Business.

Building trust in tax We have committed US$350 million to integrating advanced technology and centralising our processes in tax to help clients more efficiently meet their regulatory compliance obligations. This approach enhances accuracy, reliability, and transparency so that stakeholders receive trusted answers and timely insights.

Supporting trust in technology We have supported the responsible, trusted use of technology. We contributed to efforts to build frameworks for safe and trusted AI systems; for example, PwC US has become a founding member of the AI Safety Institute Consortium, the first-ever US consortium of its scale dedicated to AI safety. We continue to support clients to deploy Responsible AI.

See all

“Trust is not just a feel good thing. It is an economic necessity. Enterprise value has traditionally been communicated via financial statements. Now enterprise value is also created and communicated in other ways as companies must demonstrate they are trustworthy on a greater number of topics such as protecting customer data, climate performance, and more.”

Kazi Islam
Global Assurance Strategy Leader, PwC US

PwC perspectives on trust

This year, PwC shared a range of insights on trust and what it means for business:

Shrinking the consumer trust deficit

There is a widening gap between the trust that executives think consumers place in their companies and the trust that consumers actually have in them, finds PwC’s inaugural Voice of the Consumer Survey 2024. We offer six steps executives can take to strengthen consumer confidence and shrink the trust gap.

Trust Matters

93% of US business executives agree that building and maintaining trust improves the bottom line, but 94% say they face at least one challenge when building trust with stakeholders, according to PwC US’s 2024 Trust Survey.

“Trust is paramount for us as a professional services network; it is ingrained in our DNA. In an environment shaped by advancing AI technology, increasing geopolitical risks, regulatory requirements, and heightened concerns over cyber security and data protection, the importance of trust has never been greater. Helping clients build and maintain trust with shareholders, investors, regulators, customers, and their employees is our highest priority.”

Damir Maras
Global Advisory Leader, PwC Germany

Building investor trust

Investors want to know how companies are managing sustainability and emerging technologies like AI, but they lack confidence in much of the information supplied, finds PwC's Global Investor Survey 2023. Companies can address this challenge through robust, assured data and reporting.

Improving trust in cybersecurity

PwC US’s 2024 Global Digital Trust Insights survey finds that only half of executives are ‘very satisfied’ with their cybersecurity capabilities, and more than 30% of companies don’t consistently follow what should be standard practices of cyber defence. The survey report offers concrete steps to build stronger cybersecurity that maintains customer confidence.

Risk management to build trust

PwC's Global Risk Survey 2023 finds that ‘risk pioneers’ who embrace risk management as an opportunity for value creation have vastly higher performance on customer trust.

“Trust has been described as a confident relationship with the unknown. The greater the unknown, the more uncertainty, the more trust that you need. In tax we are faced with constant unknowns — regulatory uncertainty, macroeconomic pressures, tax policy changes and a dynamic work environment — all elevating the need for trust.”

Brad Silver
Global Tax & Legal Services Leader, PwC US

Enhancing trust in economies

PwC's joint report with the World Economic Forum highlights how a “skills-first” approach to hiring and developing people has the potential to transform the way that labour markets operate, helping to bring opportunity to more people and support public trust in the economic system.

Strengthening corporate governance

Strong governance is key to maintaining trust in companies. PwC US surveyed more than 600 public company C-suite executives to find insights on how to strengthen board oversight.

Growing business support for living wage

A growing number of business people are aware of the need to pay a living wage to satisfy regulatory requirements, address external pressures and attract and retain talent. 67% of business people surveyed say paying a living wage is a priority for their business.

Case studies

Tristan Hockley
Salesforce Practice Leader,
South East Asia Consulting,
PwC Singapore

Case study

Building a trusted digital bank in Malaysia

AEON Bank wanted to create a digital bank from scratch that would deliver innovative and inclusive financial services to retail customers in Malaysia while winning customer trust. So itasked PwC South East Asia Consulting to use its expertise in this area to help AEON Bank to achieve its vision.

AEON Bank and PwC South East Asia Consulting worked together to design the digital bank’s systems and build the technological framework for the customer journey, establishing Salesforce Service Cloud as the core system for running customer support activities. The mission was to make the client experience fast, responsive and personalised, something that was particularly important for a bank without physical branches.

AEON Bank is now Malaysia’s first Islamic digital bank; all its products and services are Shariah-compliant, however its services are available to all Malaysians.

The creation of the bank formed part of the AEON Bank's broader business transformation strategy and aligns with its ambition of becoming a tech enabler within the banking landscape.

Partnering with PwC South East Asia Consulting meant that the project was achieved within timelines and within budget. PwC South East Asia Consulting also helped AEON Bank address regulatory hurdles and comply with the regulatory requirements, thereby helping to build trust in the bank and its products.

“PwC played a pivotal role in introducing us to interested partners and various technology partners with world-class solutions to design and build the products and services we envisioned for the bank together with the Financial Projections to ensure the bank would be successful.”

Ajith JayaramChief Strategy Officer of AEON Bank

“PwC is thrilled to have collaborated with AEON Bank to help realise its digital-banking vision. The relentless focus on an enhanced customer experience set the tone of the engagement right from the get go, and we are confident that AEON Bank will add tremendous value for an ever-growing customer base and enrich the Malaysian digital-banking landscape.”

Tristan HockleySalesforce Practice Leader, South East Asia Consulting, PwC Singapore

Viktoria Demin
Director,
PwC Germany
and Product Owner of CYVC

Case study

Award-winning solutions helps companies build trusted supply chains

To maintain trust with stakeholders including regulators, companies must demonstrate that their supply chains adhere to human rights protections, environmental standards, and other requirements.

For example, the European Union is implementing new legislation that includes supply chain provisions such as the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), the Carbon Border Mechanism Adjustment (CBAM) and the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). In addition, in 2023, the German Supply Chain Due Diligence Act (SCDDA) came into force, requiring German companies (and those who have major trading relations with them) to assess potential human rights violations and environmental risks within their global supply chains.

It can be challenging for companies to have complete visibility into complex supply chains in order to check compliance. Fortunately, a team at PwC Germany has come up with a multi-client, enterprise ready software that can help. Its SAP-based Check Your Value Chain (CYVC) enables businesses to automatically analyse extensive supplier data across their value chain to identify environmental and social risks or violations.

The automated risk analysis, which includes an analysis of macroeconomic risks, evaluation of publicly available news sources and a review of SCDDA-relevant certificates and benchmarks, gives companies an overview of their business partner portfolio to quickly identify risky business partners. The questionnaire functionality is automated and consists of a predefined, risk-based catalogue of questions as well as a free text option giving the client the option to ask additional questions. PwC’s solution can help companies to comply with supply chain regulations in a thorough and traceable way.

The PwC Germany team drew on expertise across the PwC network including Advisory, Assurance and Legal as well as Products & Technology. The solution was constructed using reusable components on the SAP Business Technology Platform, making it easy to adjust and straightforward to scale globally. Check Your Value Chain has already incorporated the French Corporate Duty of Vigilance Law and has plans to include the UK Modern Slavery Act. When there are changes in legislation, the software is updated, allowing companies to remain up-to-date.

The solution has already won several awards including the SAP Innovation Award in 2023 and the Corporate Digital Responsibility Award in 2023. Currently the CBAM, EUDR and CSDDD modules are being developed to make the solution a holistic value chain compliance suite.

“The pressure around the globe to comply with several laws securing human rights and environmental protection in supply chains is increasing, as well as the bureaucratic burden for the concerned companies. Check Your Value Chain was developed to reduce these additional efforts for our clients and increase efficiency to practically support their compliance. This is PwC’s contribution in making supply chains more transparent and less risky over time on a global level.”

Viktoria DeminDirector, PwC Germany and Product Owner of CYVC

Johannes Smits
DE&I Practice Leader,
Partner,
PwC Switzerland

Case study

Building trust in diversity in aviation

In the airline industry, women have historically been under-represented in both senior leadership positions and on the flight deck. In 2022 only 5% of pilots were women, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

To improve diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) across the industry, IATA started the voluntary 25by2025 initiative in 2019 with the aim of increasing the number of women in senior positions and under-represented areas by at least 25% by 2025. More than 200 organisations have signed up to the initiative, and the proportion of senior leadership roles held by women has increased from 24% in 2021 to 28% in 2022, including 28 female CEOs.

However, there is a notable gap between the companies that have made the greatest progress and those still at the beginning of their DE&I work. IATA therefore engaged PwC Switzerland to help it share insights and leading practices from the initiative to enable its members to better understand their performance compared with peers and learn from their successes.

IATA and a team from PwC Switzerland specialising in DE&I and Organisational Culture built a survey to enable participating companies to understand how much progress they had made and where more focus may be needed, giving each a score and personalised recommendations.

The team focused on making the survey user friendly. It takes no more than 20 to 30 minutes to complete, and was designed so that a senior HR or DE&I leader could answer the questions without having to look for new types of employee data. It also provided space for users to share their challenges and success stories for the benefit of the industry.

The survey was launched in late 2023 and each airline was provided with a personalised diagnostic assessment. IATA then shared the key aggregated findings with its members in 2024, holding individual conversations with airlines to help them further understand their results and plan for next steps. By presenting real-life examples of leading practice and showing what types of change really work in increasing gender diversity, IATA hopes to further increase the number of women in senior leadership roles, thereby building trust within the industry as a whole.

“The overarching aim is to keep making progress — no matter how advanced the company is in its DE&I journey, members can make improvements. Our industry involves people everywhere in the world and we want to make it more representative of the world around us.”

Jane HoskissonDirector of Talent, Learning, Engagement and Diversity at IATA

“Our team has worked with organisations across different industries and countries to assess DE&I progress in the workplace. We were able to build upon our experience and expertise to develop a tried-and-tested DE&I maturity index approach for IATA, which we then adapted to take into account the reality and particular challenges of the aviation industry.”

Johannes SmitsDE&I Practice Leader, Partner, PwC Switzerland

Jacky Wan
Partner,
PwC Hong Kong

Case study

Helping a major airline maintain trust at a challenging time

Many airlines around the world have suffered financial difficulties brought about by the Covid pandemic and the subsequent challenging market. Specialists from PwC China and PwC Hong Kong have been working with one such airline, Hong Kong Airlines, to help it recover from these impacts.

PwC Hong Kong restructuring specialists, with support from various PwC Hong Kong and PwC UK teams, worked with Hong Kong Airlines as the financial advisers on its successful HK$49 billion debt restructuring.

The restructuring has effectively dealt with the liabilities owed to financial and operating creditors in various jurisdictions using a parallel Hong Kong Scheme of Arrangement and UK Restructuring Plan process for the first time.

This debt restructuring exercise, coupled with a new equity injection of HK$3 billion, allows Hong Kong Airlines to recover from its financial difficulties just in time to prepare for the recovery of the aviation industry in the region.

PwC advisors helped to build trust between a distressed corporate business and its stakeholders to overcome the hardest time of the economic cycle. PwC more broadly aims to continue to be involved in distressed situations to help deliver beneficial and sustained outcomes for industries and their customers.

“The successful restructuring of the second largest airline in Hong Kong not only prevented a disruption to the travel plans of tens of thousands of people in Hong Kong and other cities, but opened the door for further development of the aviation industry locally.”

Jacky WanPartner, PwC Hong Kong

Nik Wilson
Workforce,
Associate Director,
PwC New Zealand

Case study

Inclusive indigenous-led workforce solutions build employee trust

Workforce solutions are more successful when they reflect the context in which people live and work. This is particularly true in relation to the ethnic identity and lived experiences that employees bring to the workplace. Aotearoa New Zealand's indigenous Māori people make up approximately 16.7% of the country's population yet are under-represented in the workforce, particularly in leadership roles.

A team from PwC New Zealand helped to address this issue by creating an indigenous-led workforce solution that integrates and embeds the perspectives, values and principles of Māori people into traditional workplace frameworks.

This innovative approach includes engaging with Māori staff, leaders, communities, and cultural specialists through wānanga facilitation, an indigenous-led form of workshop, to authentically represent their viewpoints. It also uses Māori worldview frameworks and methodologies which respect and integrate Māori wants and aspirations, often through the use of indigenous storytelling to connect concepts. The indigenous-led workplace solutions incorporate a deep understanding of Te Tiriti — the treaty between Māori and the Crown — to create bespoke solutions for each business.

Continuous engagement with Māori communities helped the approach remain authentic and culturally sensitive. Ongoing support is provided so that the integration of indigenous perspectives remains a living practice within the organisation.

There are considerable benefits to an organisation in taking this unique approach. By empowering Māori employees and making leadership and other workforce opportunities more accessible and relevant to them, organisations are able to harness the full potential of their workforce. This creates a diverse, equitable and culturally responsive work environment, resulting in greater employee engagement, increased productivity and trust.

The framework created by the PwC New Zealand team can be adapted to meet the needs of indigenous and diverse populations across the world, helping to build trust not only in organisations but in society as a whole.

“Understanding and empowering employees not only benefits them as individuals, it also benefits the organisations they work for. We believe that inclusive, indigenous-led perspectives will pave the future of better workplaces and employer relationships globally.”

Nik WilsonWorkforce, Associate Director, PwC New Zealand