Scientia Professor Ross Buckley

My research focuses on the Future of Money, FinTech more broadly, and the Consumer Data Right. The Future of Money focus includes stablecoins, central bank digital currencies, deposit tokens and tokenized bank deposits. My research is currently the fifth most frequently downloaded legal research of all time from the Social Science Research Network (SSRN), with some 270,000 downloads as at year-end 2025.  I am currently the most cited Australian legal scholar on Google Scholar with over 14,500 citations to my work.

My Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship, 2020 - 2027, is a $3.7 million project that explores how Australia might best regulate the rise of data and its analysis so as to seize the related benefits while managing the many risks. See the Laureate Project website for all of the Project's diverse research outputs. 

Before this, for six years, I led two major sequential projects on the delivery of financial services over mobile devices in developing countries. I led a team of three to four researchers on these projects, funded by a large ARC Linkage grant in conjunction with, and generously supported by, the United Nations Capital Development Fund. 

I joined the Faculty in January 2007, and was appointed a Scientia Professor, and to the King & Wood Mallesons Chair in International Finance Law, in 2013. This research sponsorship was expanded with KPMG Law, from 2018 until 2023, and the Chair renamed as the KPMG Law - KWM Chair in Disruptive Innovation and Law.

I began my career practising banking and finance law in Australia and Hong Kong and on Wall Street with Davis Polk, in total for some nine years.

Areas of expertise

FinTech, RegTech, cryptocurrencies, central bank digital currencies, digital assets generally, consumer data right, and digital financial services.

Professional Memberships and Affiliations

Member, Payments System Board, Reserve Bank of Australia.

Chair, Digital Finance Advisory Panel, Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC)

Member, Consultative Panel, ASIC.

Member, Public Private Markets Advisory Group, ASIC. 

Member, Simplification Consultative Group, ASIC. 

Founding Series Editor, Global Trade Law Series, Kluwer Law International, The Hague.

Series Co-editor, Kluwer's International Banking and Finance Law Series.

Research Supervision

If you are interested in working with me, you should be fascinated by the future of money. 

I may have openings for two doctoral candidates with outstanding academic results in law to work in this field, starting mid-2026 and early 2027, supported by scholarships under the Laureate Project.

I have previously supervised 13 doctoral candidates to successful completion.

Post-doctoral Fellowship Opportunities

There are no current post-doctoral research fellow opportunities on the Laureate Project. All openings are filled. Fellows who were on this or my earlier major research projects now serve as a Professor at Durham, Associate Professors at UNSW (2) and Monash, and on the faculties of Boston University, Leiden University, and Chinese University of Hong Kong.