India has thousands of chartered accountancy firms, a large professional talent pool and one of the world’s biggest corporate markets. What it has not yet produced is an Indian professional services group operating internationally at a scale comparable with the largest global networks.
That gap is increasingly becoming a regulatory question.
The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) is examining potential changes to the framework governing chartered accountancy firms, including areas such as consolidation, capital, multidisciplinary practices and the range of services firms can provide.
The direction is significant. Building larger Indian firms may depend less on encouraging individual practices to grow and more on whether the regulatory framework allows them to adopt the structures, financing and breadth of capabilities required to compete at scale.
India Has a Scale Problem, Not a Talent Problem
India’s accounting profession is extensive, but it remains highly fragmented.
The market contains hundreds of firms auditing relatively small numbers of listed companies, alongside a much smaller group of large networks serving major corporations.
According to data cited by The Economic Times, 649 firms audited only one listed company, while just 25 firms audited ten or more.
At the upper end of the market, international networks have a much stronger presence. The Big Four collectively represented approximately 51% of the market capitalisation of listed companies included in the FY2026 analysis cited in the report.
This creates an unusual market structure: considerable professional capacity exists, but comparatively little of it has been assembled into very large Indian organisations.
Consolidation Has Already Accelerated
The first response has been to make combinations between firms easier.
ICAI’s Merger and Demerger of CA Firms Guidelines, 2024 and Aggregation of LLPs Guidelines, 2024 introduced mechanisms intended to facilitate larger structures.
The aggregation framework, for example, allows an Indian CA firm operating as an LLP to become a partner in another Indian CA LLP.
The impact appears increasingly visible.
Around 1,000 mergers of chartered accountancy firms were reportedly approved between February and August 2026.
But mergers alone are unlikely to create globally competitive professional services groups.
A larger partnership still needs integrated technology, common governance, specialist teams, quality controls, international capabilities and sufficient capital to invest in all of them.
That is where the next stage of reform becomes more interesting.
The Capital Question Could Be Transformational
Modern accounting firms are increasingly technology businesses as well as professional partnerships.
AI, data infrastructure, cybersecurity, workflow platforms and specialist technology teams require significant investment. International expansion requires further capital.
Traditional professional partnership models were not necessarily designed for that level of investment.
One area reportedly being examined is therefore the ability of firms to obtain additional capital.
This could have substantial consequences.
A domestic firm capable of raising significantly more capital could invest faster in technology, acquire specialist practices, recruit senior professionals and potentially expand internationally.
But opening professional firms to new sources of funding also creates difficult questions.
Who can own an interest in an accounting firm? How much influence can outside investors exercise? How should profits be shared? And, particularly where audit is involved, how is professional independence protected?
The eventual regulatory detail will therefore be critical.
The Future Firm May Look Very Different From a Traditional CA Practice
Scale also depends on what services firms are permitted to combine.
The largest global professional services organisations operate across multiple disciplines. Audit may sit alongside tax, transactions, technology implementation, risk, data, cybersecurity and other advisory services.
India has already started moving in this direction.
ICAI’s revised Code of Ethics, effective from 1 April 2026, broadened the scope of Management Consultancy and Other Services, including areas connected with artificial intelligence, forensic accounting and social impact assessment.
The broader reform discussion could take this further through multidisciplinary structures involving professionals outside chartered accountancy.
That potentially changes the strategic objective.
The goal would no longer simply be to create larger audit firms. It could enable the development of larger Indian professional services groups.
That distinction matters.
Tax and Technology Will Be Central to the Model
Any Indian firm seeking to compete internationally will also need significant tax and technology capabilities.
Large multinational clients increasingly require support across corporate tax, GST, transfer pricing, customs, international tax, tax controversy and increasingly tax technology.
At the same time, tax compliance itself is becoming more technology-intensive.
India’s own GST infrastructure, e-invoicing environment and extensive digital tax administration demonstrate how quickly traditional compliance functions can become data and technology operations.
A future large Indian professional services group would therefore likely need tax professionals working alongside engineers, data specialists and technology teams rather than operating as a conventional stand-alone tax practice.
This makes the discussion around multidisciplinary structures particularly relevant to the tax profession.
International Reach Is a Separate Challenge
Creating scale within India is only part of the equation.
A genuinely global firm requires the ability to serve clients across jurisdictions.
ICAI has attempted to address this through its Global Networking Guidelines, which were intended to provide a framework for Indian firms and networks developing international affiliations.
Implementation has, however, proved complicated. In July 2026, ICAI announced that further implementation of the Global Networking Guidelines was being kept in abeyance until further orders.
The issue demonstrates the complexity of designing an international professional network.
Cross-border arrangements raise questions concerning branding, revenue sharing, responsibility for engagements, professional independence, regulatory supervision and relationships between Indian firms and foreign entities.
For an Indian professional services group with global ambitions, resolving these questions may ultimately be as important as domestic consolidation.
Government Contracts Could Help Firms Build Scale
There is another important dimension: access to major mandates.
Smaller firms can find themselves excluded from large government or corporate engagements because tender criteria require substantial turnover, net worth, staffing levels or previous experience.
That creates a circular problem.
A firm needs major assignments to develop credentials and scale, but it may need scale and credentials before it can qualify for those assignments.
Government efforts to reconsider disproportionate qualification requirements in consultancy tenders could therefore complement ICAI’s regulatory reforms.
Consolidation can create larger firms. Access to significant assignments can give those firms the experience and revenue necessary to keep growing.
From “Big Four” to a Broader Indian Professional Services Market
India’s ambition to develop major domestic accounting firms has existed for years.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi raised the idea in 2017, calling for Indian firms capable of joining the world’s largest professional services organisations and effectively turning the global Big Four into a “Big Eight”.
Nearly a decade later, the discussion is becoming more concrete.
The relevant questions are now about partnership structures, mergers, capital, multidisciplinary practices, international networks and market access.
That represents an important evolution.
India cannot create global-scale professional services organisations simply by designating several firms as national champions. Firms need the commercial and regulatory conditions that allow them to consolidate, invest, recruit, diversify and expand internationally.
What Comes Next
Changes to the Chartered Accountants Act could therefore become an important next step.
The areas to watch are not merely whether additional amendments are introduced, but what they permit in practice: new ownership structures, external capital, multidisciplinary partnerships, broader advisory capabilities and potentially greater flexibility in international arrangements.
There will also be a balancing exercise.
Rules designed to encourage scale cannot come at the expense of audit independence, professional accountability or quality. The challenge for regulators will be to modernise the business framework while preserving those safeguards.
India already has the professionals and the domestic market.
The question increasingly being tested is whether it also has the professional-services architecture needed to turn thousands of individual practices into a smaller number of genuinely global organisations.