Dr Anton Didenko is a Senior Lecturer at UNSW Law and a member of CIBEL Centre. Anton specialises in banking and finance law, with a focus on FinTech and open banking/open finance. He shares his current work, achievements and upcoming research endeavours with us.
What project are you working on that excites you?
I have signed a three-year secondment agreement with the DFCRC (Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre – a 10-year, $180 million research program funded by industry partners, universities and the Australian Government). As part of this engagement, I work with innovators, regulators, non-legal academics and other experts to identify and overcome the legal challenges associated with the circulation of so-called ‘digital assets’ (e.g., tokenised bonds) in Australia. At the moment, I am leading a research project that investigates how the regulatory framework for financial market infrastructures in Australia should be updated to recognise the benefits of the innovative technologies and mitigate the associated risks. This work is informed by my earlier research in the area of regulatory innovation, including my foundational article on regulatory sandboxes published in the UNSW Law Journal (‘A Better Model for Australia’s Enhanced Fintech Sandbox’) and my on-site work with the regulators around the world to set up innovation-promoting legal frameworks, including a world-first regional regulatory sandbox in the Pacific.
What do you hope to achieve with your research/impact & engagement in the next year?
As part of my collaboration with the DFCRC, I plan to lead a new research project that investigates the legal implications of tokenised real-world assets (e.g., digital representations of material objects recorded on the blockchain) – an area of finance that is developing rapidly and holds enormous potential. According to some finance experts in Australia, the market value of such assets may well exceed 1,000 trillion dollars over time!
Another research area I will continue to develop in 2025 is open banking/open finance – i.e., laws that enable customers to share their valuable data (traditionally locked in the ‘vaults’ held by large incumbents such as banks) safely and efficiently with various service providers. I plan to continue the work that was started in my newest monograph that was published earlier this year (‘Customer Data Sharing Frameworks: Twelve Lessons for the World’, co-authored with Natalia Jevglevskaja and Ross Buckley).
What research/impact & engagement achievement are you most proud of and why?
I am passionate about steering financial regulation to serve the needs of those who are financially excluded or otherwise disadvantaged. I do believe that commercial law should not be a tool to entrench incumbents – it is capable of much more than that, and through my research I have continuously identified opportunities to improve financial inclusion and promote competition in the sector, in Australia and overseas. This is what I am most proud of. Several recent examples come to mind.
First, the Monash University Law Review has just published my two major articles that (i) explore the concept of consumer trust in Australia’s Consumer Data Right (CDR) framework and (ii) propose legal reforms that put the consumer front and centre of the CDR regime. This work is reinforced by my new monograph (‘Customer Data Sharing Frameworks: Twelve Lessons for the World’), which explores the different dimensions of customer-driven data-sharing legal regimes.
Second, my research on the implications of launching central bank digital currencies in smaller Pacific Island countries published in the Asia Pacific Law Review has been particularly influential. I was invited by the Indonesian Government (which at the time held the G20 Presidency) to present the findings at a G20 event because my research was recognised as world leading. This work was subsequently cited by the Bank for International Settlements and the Reserve Bank of India.
Lastly, my research on the regulation of FinTech (technological innovation in finance) in Sub-Saharan Africa has received broad international recognition and is now widely cited as foundational work in the field.
Do you have a regular research practice that you can share?
After years of trying to test different research practices (with varying degrees of success), I have learned that neither model works for me particularly well. There are periods when I feel most productive while working in short bursts with regular intervals – and yet there are times when I need to shut the windows and concentrate for hours on a single issue. Hence, I have learned to trust my own self for increased productivity. So far, so good!
Are there any research/impact & engagement questions or problems you need help with? Is there a particular topic you would like to connect with other scholars on?
I am keen to keep exploring the vast area of innovative customer data sharing frameworks (particularly open finance), and I think this is the field where collaboration would be particularly beneficial.
FinTech remains a key area of my research – one in which I hope to engage with as many colleagues as possible to tackle the very complex legal/regulatory aspects of new technologies, some of which are quite scary!
You can connect with Dr Anton Didenko and his work via SSRN, Google Scholar and LinkedIn .