Oxford Business Law Blog

This conference explores the use of technology in financial markets from the perspectives of finance, law and regulation. The event covers payment systems, cryptocurrencies and property law, digital...

Data standardization—the process of developing and implementing rules for how data are described and recorded—offers significant benefits for financial firms and regulators. Nonetheless, the topic...

In early 2009, with the financial crisis still raging, progressive policymakers successfully passed legislation upending the credit card industry. This legislation precluded card issuers from...

A considerable proportion of publicly traded corporate bonds comprises bonds of privately held firms (ie, firms whose equity is non-listed and does not trade over the counter). In our paper 'Is it...

Since the 1990s, the Internet has become the communications channel by which an increasing number of commercial and financial transactions take place. But already in the 1990s, it was clear that the...

In this post, we provide an overview of the main findings of the latest Report from the Italian financial regulator, CONSOB, on Italian households’ financial choices. The 2018 edition of CONSOB’s...

The breach of Union law procedure of the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) has been in the spotlight recently. In July, the European Banking Authority (EBA) issued a recommendation under the...

The recent Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal (“CFA”) decision in Moody’s Investors Service Hong Kong Limited v Securities and Futures Commission [2018] HKCFA 42 raises very important issues regarding...

Modern payment systems have changed considerably over the past decade. In developing countries, so-called ‘electronic money’, issued and used on mobile phones, provided a viable digital alternative...

Regulators have made great progress over the past decade in designing mechanisms to deal with a failed systemically important financial institution (SIFI) in a way that avoids both a bailout and the...

In a new paper, ‘A Public Option for Bank Accounts (or Central Banking for All),’ we propose that the Federal Reserve (the ‘Fed’) offer bank account services to the general public and not just to...

Initial coin offerings (ICOs) may be a significant innovation in entrepreneurial finance. Blockchain-based digital assets offer cryptographic security and credible commitment devices, which may...

How to master the profusion of financial regulation, let alone comply with it, is one of the most pressing issues faced by the financial sector today. An important part of the answer is RegTech:...

Since the first of January 2016, the Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM) has become fully operational. For the Member States of the European Banking Union, the new regime entails the transfer of the...

As knowledge of cryptocurrencies becomes more widespread, the number of the people using them grows. Their attractiveness is due in part to their decentralized, peer-to-peer structure. This makes...

The international financial crisis highlighted that some banks and financial institutions were ‘too big, too complex, and too interconnected to fail’. These banks, which are generally referred to as...

More than 8,000 domestic equity securities were publicly traded in the U.S. OTC market in 2010. Yet, research studying this market is limited. Stocks in this market tend to be small. The OTC market...

Crowdfunding - an outcome of the modern sharing economy - has experienced rapid growth in some EU Member States, notably the UK, France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. However, home bias by...

Modern, globalised financial markets are the offspring of a process of liberalisation of capital that started with the collapse of Bretton Woods in the 1970s and culminated with the deregulation...

Financial regulatory institutions are at the centre of intensive debates surrounding the regulatory tools to supervise financial firms and markets. There is also an important and growing body of...