Team
Scientia Professor
Dr Ross Buckley
Ross is an ARC Laureate Fellow and Scientia Professor at UNSW Sydney. His and Douglas Arner’s joint research on FinTech and RegTech has been cited, and downloaded from SSRN, more often than that of any other social scientist in the world. Ross has twice been a Fulbright Scholar, at Yale and Duke.
Ross’ and Doug’s leading articles on financial technology (FinTech) and regulatory technology (RegTech) are each the most cited in their fields. Their foundational research outputs with earlier research teams can be found here.
A key indicator of social science research impact is readership on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN), an open-access online repository for accounting, economics, finance & law, on which over 400,000 scholars post their work. Ross’ and Doug’s research on FinTech and RegTech has been downloaded more often from SSRN than that of any other social scientist in the world.
Across law as a discipline, for the past five years, their work has consistently ranked among the top five most frequently downloaded from SSRN, and for one six month period it was the most downloaded legal scholarship in the world.
Visiting Professorial Fellow
Dr Douglas Arner
Douglas Arner is the Kerry Holdings Professor in Law, RGC Senior Fellow in Digital Finance and Sustainable Development and Associate Director of the HKU-Standard Chartered Foundation FinTech Academy at the University of Hong Kong. He is an internationally renowned expert in FinTech regularly consulting financial regulators throughout the world and the 3rd most downloaded legal scholar globally on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN).
Douglas is also Associate Dean (Taught Postgraduate and Development) of the Faculty of Law at HKU, co-founder of HKU’s Asian Institute of International Financial Law, and Faculty Director and co-founder of multiple LLM Programmes at HKU. He led the development of Introduction to FinTech – launched with edX in May 2018 and now with over 100,000 learners spanning almost every country in the world – and the foundation of the edx-HKU Online Professional Certificate in FinTech.
Douglas has published eighteen books and more than 200 articles, chapters and reports on international financial law and regulation (see here and here) and has been a Visiting Professor or Fellow at Duke University, the Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research, IDC Herzliya, McGill University, the University of Melbourne, National University of Singapore, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, and Zurich University, among others.
In 2020, Douglas was awarded an inaugural Hong Kong Research Grants Council Senior Fellowship to study the role of digital finance in financial inclusion and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Visiting Professorial Fellow
Dr Dirk Zetzsche
Dirk Zetzsche is Professor of Financial Law at the University of Luxembourg where he holds the ADA Chair in Financial Law (inclusive finance) and leads the Faculty of Law, Economics and Finance’s House of Sustainable Governane & Markets. He is also one of the Directors of the Center for Business & Corporate Law at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf. Dirk is a leading expert in financial law and the 6th most downloaded legal scholar in the world on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN).
Dirk’s research focuses on financial and corporate law, in particular on FinTech, RegTech, CorpTech and alternative investment funds, institutional investments as well as inclusive and sustainable finance. He is the author of some 300 publications (see here and here) including a number of globally leading articles on FinTech and RegTech, corporate governance, sustainable finance and two leading treatises on collective and alternative investment law and regulation.
Dirk has presented and lectured at leading universities around the world. He has also advised and presented to, among others, the Australian Securities and Investment Commission, the Bank of International Settlements, the Financial Stability Board, the European Commission, the European Parliament, the European Securities & Market Authority, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, the German Secretary of Justice, the German Secretary of Finance as well as the Governments of Luxembourg and Liechtenstein. He regularly cooperates with development organisations and agencies across the globe, including, inter alia, ADA, the Alliance for Financial Inclusion, the Asian Development Bank, the Islamic Development Bank, the German GIZ, the Toronto Centre, the World Bank, the United Nations, and the Carnegie Establishment on International Peace.
Adjunct Professor
Dr Scott Farrell
Scott Farrell is a Strategic Counsel at King & Wood Mallesons (Sydney). He led the Australian Government’s review into Open Banking in Australia (see Treasury, Report of the Review into Open Banking: Giving Customers Choice, Convenience and Confidence (December 2017)), the Australian Government’s Inquiry into Future Directions for the Consumer Data Right (see Treasury, Inquiry into Future Directions for the Consumer Data Right (October 2020)), and the Australian Government’s review of the Australian Payment System (see Treasury, Payments System Review: From System to Ecosystem (June 2021)).
Associate Professor
Dr Anton Didenko
Anton is an Associate Professor at UNSW Sydney specialising in banking and finance law, with a focus on FinTech, RegTech and cybersecurity. He has over 10 years of experience as in-house counsel for major commercial banks in Moscow and as senior associate at a law firm in London.
Prior to joining UNSW Sydney, Anton worked as head of international business divisions in the legal departments of several commercial banks and as a Research Fellow at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law. His experience covers advising on banking regulations and legislation applicable to financial intermediaries, as well as a wide range of financing transactions.
Anton also specialises in the area of secured transactions law and transnational commercial law: he is the author of a monograph on the documentary history of the Cape Town Convention on International Interests in Mobile Equipment (Hart, 2021) and the general editor of the Cape Town Convention Journal.
Anton holds several law degrees from Russia and the UK, including an MJur and a DPhil from the University of Oxford.
Senior Research Fellow
Dr Vanessa Villanueva Collao
Vanessa Villanueva Collao is a Senior Research Fellow in FinTech at UNSW Sydney. Her research sits at the intersection of corporate law and technology, focusing on securities regulation, decentralised finance (DeFi), governance, and regulatory design.
Her work examines how emerging financial infrastructures reshape corporate organisation and market dynamics, with particular attention to the role of intermediaries in decentralised markets and the governance of digital assets. She develops the concept of “cryptogatekeepers” to explain how new actors perform key governance and assurance functions in DeFi, challenging traditional narratives of disintermediation. Vanessa’s research combines empirical methods to analyse how legal systems respond to technological change and to explore broader questions of corporate and financial law.
Vanessa is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (JSD), the University of California at Berkeley (LL.M.), and the University of Genoa (Law Degree and MA in Economics). Publications on SSRN.
Research Fellow
Dr Albert Puja
Albert is a Research Fellow at UNSW Sydney. His current research explores answers to the policy, legal and regulatory issues raised by the various innovations and emerging technologies that are defining the current era of FinTech and digital finance more broadly. He also engages with other fields that raise related issues, including data privacy, digital trade, corporate digital responsibility and the governance of the digital economy and technologies.
Before joining UNSW, Albert served in various capacities as a Lecturing Assistant and Research Fellow at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa. He was involved in research, teaching and supervision in the areas of legal research and writing, trade finance, financial regulation, FinTech and some public law modules at both postgraduate and undergraduate levels.
Alongside this engagement in academia, Albert has been actively involved in legal practice for over ten years across diverse settings, including law firms, in-house and consulting. He has advised and worked on several matters relating to banking and finance transactions, project finance, mergers and acquisition, regulatory compliance, data privacy, IT contracts, technology transfer and policy reform initiatives across different African markets.
Albert completed his Bachelor of Laws (LLB) at Nnamdi Azikiwe University in Nigeria, graduating as the third-best student in his cohort. He also holds a Master of Laws (LLM) in International Trade, Business and Investment Law, awarded cum laude, and a Doctor of Laws (LLD) specialising in FinTech, both from the University of the Western Cape in South Africa. He is admitted as a Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Nigeria.
Visiting Fellow
Dr Cheng-Yun Tsang
Dr. Cheng-Yun Tsang is an Associate Professor at the College of Law, National Chengchi University (NCCU), and a Visiting Fellow at UNSW Sydney.
Cheng-Yun teaches FinTech and the Law, Banking Law, and Governance of Global Finance at NCCU. He is also the Director of the RegTech/SupTech Innovation Laboratory at NCCU’s FinTech Research Center. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the National Credit Card Center in Taiwan. Cheng-Yun’s research is focused on the regulation of FinTech – RegTech/SupTech, cryptocurrency, blockchain, regulatory sandboxes, and, in particular, open banking. Prior to joining NCCU, he was a Research Fellow at UNSW Sydney and a member of UNSW Law’s Digital Financial Services Research Team. Cheng-Yun was awarded the Young Scholar Fellowship (the Columbus Program) by Taiwan’s Ministry of Science and Technology. The Fellowship is a five-year national research grant on FinTech Law and Regulation (2020-2025).
Cheng-Yun received his SJD and LLM from Duke University School of Law and his MBA from National Taiwan University. His works have appeared in such journals as Capital Markets Law Journal, Banking & Finance Law Review, UNSW Law Journal, Modern Law Review, The University of Illinois Journal of Law, Technology & Policy, The University of Pennsylvania Journal of Business Law, Review of Banking and Financial Law, and Houston Journal of International Law.
The list of Cheng-Yun’s publications can be found here.
PhD Candidate
Mia Trzecinski
Mia is a PhD Candidate at the Faculty of Law & Justice at UNSW Sydney. She is the recipient of an Industry PhD Scholarship from the Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre and is placed in the Payments Policy Department at the Reserve Bank of Australia for the duration of her program. Mia’s PhD research considers how access to emerging infrastructures for cross-border payments might be governed.
Mia previously worked as a Research Fellow at UNSW Sydney. She graduated from UNSW with a Bachelor of Laws (Hons I) / Bachelor of Arts (with Distinction).
PhD Candidate
Shohini Sengupta
Shohini is a PhD student at the Faculty of Law & Justice working on the digital identity program in India and its implications on financial citizenship. She has previously worked in the field of legislative policymaking, focussing on financial stability, bank resolution, and research at the intersection of finance, regulation, and technology law.
She has assisted the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, the Ministry of Petroleum, financial sector regulators, and the Fifteenth Finance Commission in India on several socio-economic and legal matters, including the Companies Amendment Bill, 2016, and the draft Financial Resolution and Deposit Insurance Bill, 2017. She has a Bachelor’s degree in law from the National Law Institute University, Bhopal, and a Master’s degree in Law and Finance from the University of Oxford on the Weidenfeld leadership scholarship. She is on leave from the Jindal School of Banking & Finance, where she is an Associate Professor and the founding Director of the Centre for Research & Analysis in Finance, Technology & Law. She can be found on the following platforms – Twitter, LinkedIn, SSRN.
Research Assistant
Bisesh Belbase
Bisesh is studying a Bachelor of Politics, Philosophy and Economics / Bachelor of Laws at UNSW Sydney.
Research Assistant
Liyang Yu
Liyang is studying a Bachelor of Politics, Philosophy and Economics / Bachelor of Laws at UNSW Sydney.
Research Assistant
Zainul Abbas Afnan Punjani
Zain is studying a Bachelor of Politics, Philosophy and Economics / Bachelor of Laws at UNSW Sydney.