Human rights are based on a recognition of the equal, inherent and “inalienable rights of all members of the human family”. Human rights, trade and development need not be ships passing in the night, as some have argued. Rather they are interrelated and interconnected concepts, often but not...

Payment services are, at their simplest, services for moving money around the economy. These services carry risks for the provider and the customer, from credit and insolvency risk, through to fraud and ‘mere’ errors. Different societies deal with, manage and allocate these risks...

Bitcoin has been described as a decentralised virtual currency. Virtual currencies, such as bitcoins, are a form of money and a payment system. However, being a decentralised system, there is no central issuer, authority or register-keeper. Bitcoin is unique, not because it is a virtual...

The community appears to want governments to ‘do more' to raise the quality and safety of financial products and services delivered to the public, particularly to retail clients. This is true in many countries, including Australia, the UK and the USA. This paper discusses how established...

The under-use of lower cost and higher performing passively managed funds by consumers appears to be an example of market failure that is leading to consumer detriment. These investing decisions do not appear to be economically rational behavior by investors. This article considers some possible...

This paper deals with the regulation of Internet banking. In this arena, the law is in a period of rapid development and change.As in similar situations, the legal system has struggled to keep pace with the technology involved. Internet banking is regulated by the Australian financial sector...

Like most Western governments, the Australian Government has adopted a free market approach to the financial services industry, relying on the market to resolve which financial products and services are produced and consumed, and at what price. However, a consumer protection regime exists in...

Financial services regulation is becoming increasingly globalised in response to the global nature of the industry. Firms, including hedge funds, are highly mobile. Each regulator must take into account global regulatory standards – if local regulation is below or above the international...

Financial services regulation is becoming increasingly globalised in response to the global nature of the industry. Firms, including hedge funds, are highly mobile. Each regulator must take into account global regulatory standards – if local regulation is below or above the international...

This article will show mobile banking and payments are evolutionary, not revolutionary. They allow conventional intermediated payments to be used in more situations by more people. Admittedly they appear revolutionary in the sense that they open up the provision of banking services by non-banks....