Empowering responsible financial innovation
The Digital Finance Research Hub brings together leading researchers from across UQ Business School to address the most important challenges and opportunities arising from digital transformation in finance. Drawing on expertise across multiple disciplines, the Hub develops rigorous and forward-looking research on areas such as digital assets, AI in finance, platform finance, data risk and operational resilience.
We work closely with government, regulators, financial institutions, and technology firms to produce research that is academically robust, policy relevant and practically useful. Through these collaborations, the Hub aims to support more efficient and resilient markets, strengthen consumer protection and promote responsible innovation in financial services. By combining scholarly excellence with real-world engagement, we seek to contribute to better decision-making, better regulation and a more trustworthy digital financial system.
Our research is split into the following 5 themes:
Cyber risk assessment and digital operational resilience
We model and quantify cyber risk as a core component of digital financial stability. Our work develops stress-testing frameworks and resilience metrics to help institutions manage operational disruption and systemic vulnerabilities. We also investigate algorithmic decision-making and AI governance to strengthen accountability and operational resilience in financial institutions.
Data assets and data markets
We examine how data can be defined, measured, governed and valued as a strategic asset in the digital economy. Our work addresses data recognition and reporting, privacy-preserving data sharing, data ownership structures and the design of efficient data markets. We also provide evidence-based insights into how organisations can manage data risk while unlocking economic value.
Digital assets, tokenisation and blockchain
We study how blockchain infrastructure and tokenisation are reshaping asset ownership, liquidity and market design. Our research also contributes to policy and regulatory debates on digital asset markets, financial stability and cross-border financial innovation.
Consumer finance and platform finance
We examine how fintech and digital platforms are transforming household financial decision-making, including borrowing, investing, budgeting, retirement planning and mortgage intermediation. Our research evaluates both the opportunities and risks of digital finance, with a strong focus on consumer outcomes and consumer protection.
AI in capital markets
We investigate how artificial intelligence and machine learning are changing pricing, trading, risk management and information flow in financial markets. Our work bridges advanced computational methods with economic theory and regulatory design.
Digital Transaction platforms in Asia (ARC Discovery Projects 2022–2026)
This project seeks to provide a comprehensive and authoritative account of the rapid shift towards digital payments in Asian economies. The study examines the technical and commercial organisation of the leading Asian transaction platforms. Our approach seeks to emphasise the significance of cultural diversity in Asian markets through detailed studies of everyday norms and practices in India, Indonesia, China, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam and the Philippines. A large scale analysis of market and user data seeks to illustrate key trends at scale and provide a regional knowledge base for assessing the implications for Australia, fostering multilateral collaboration and developing robust policy recommendations on the digital economy.
UQ researcher: Associate Professor Adrian Athique and Associate Professor Elske van de Fliert
Funding body: Australian Research Council
Assessing cyber risks
Assessing cyber risks is far from straightforward. Organisations face not only a shortage of quantitative methods and reliable data, but also the challenge that multiple roles contribute to assessment, often producing interpretations that do not align. To address this, we develop a financial quantification approach for an insurance company, which integrates Bayesian Fault Tree Analysis with Business Impact Analysis to provide a more rigorous basis for estimating cyber risk.
UQ researcher: Associate Professor Sergeja Slapnicar
Developing dynamic capabilities in AI governance
Artificial intelligence is transforming organisational decision making while creating governance challenges arising from opaque models, shifting datasets and vendor controlled systems. We investigate how organisations build dynamic capabilities to manage AI risks. The findings show that currently sensing of opportunities and risks is largely vendor driven, seizing is limited by resource constraints and difficulties scaling pilots, and reconfiguring capabilities remain weakest due to struggles with institutionalising AI governance and coordinating roles.
UQ researcher: Associate Professor Sergeja Slapnicar
Funding body: Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA), UK
What drives good cyber risk management – and what it leads to
We research which cyber resilience capabilities meaningfully influence incident outcomes, and how organisational and contextual factors shape the maturity and effectiveness of those capabilities.
UQ Researchers: Associate Professor Sergeja Slapnicar, Alexander Neumann, Dr Vanitha Ragunathan, Dr Elinor Tsen and Professor Ryan Ko
Contact us
Get in touch to learn more about our research or to explore opportunities with the Digital Finance Research Hub.