As of 1 April 2021, Emanuel van Praag was appoin­ted Pro­fess­or of Fin­an­cial Tech­no­logy (FinTech) and Law (0.4fte) at the Erasmus School of Law.  The effects of tech­no­lo­gic­al devel­op­ments, includ­ing the use of big data and open bank­ing in the fin­an­cial sec­tor, require a clear leg­al frame­work.  The appoint­ment makes it pos­sible to con­duct mul­tidiscip­lin­ary research on this with a good under­stand­ing of tech­no­lo­gies.  Due to his role as a prac­ti­cing law­yer with HVG Law LLP, Emanuel has good insight into the latest devel­op­ments in the fin­an­cial industry.

Van Praag has extens­ive know­ledge of (European) Fin­an­cial Law and is an expert in fin­an­cial tech­no­logy and in approach­ing new busi­ness mod­els and tech­niques from a leg­al per­spect­ive. He has been con­nec­ted to Erasmus School of Law for the past two years. He has been involved in the teach­ing of the course “Fin­an­cial Tech­no­logy and Law” and he has super­vised sev­er­al stu­dents dur­ing their mas­ter thes­is. In addi­tion, for the past two years, he has been a seni­or fel­low at the International Centre for Financial law and Governance (ICFG) and a part of his new research with­in the chair will be embod­ied in the ICFG. Van Praag was also Head of Reg­u­lat­ory Com­pli­ance at the former FinTech com­pany Pritle and has writ­ten many (sci­entif­ic) pub­lic­a­tions. His most sig­ni­fic­ant con­tri­bu­tions are his pre­lim­in­ary advice on the reg­u­la­tion of the pay­ment industry and the onset of open bank­ing (PSD2) and his art­icle “The fin­an­cial con­sumer in the era of big data”.

In addi­tion to this pos­i­tion at the Erasmus School of Law, Van Praag con­tin­ues his work at HVG Law LLP as a Fin­an­cial Reg­u­lat­ory Law law­yer.  He has approx­im­ately 13 years of exper­i­ence with­in the leg­al field and fin­an­cial sec­tor.  He has always com­bined his work in aca­demia with his pro­fes­sion­al prac­tice and he will con­tin­ue this after his appoint­ment.  He aims to close the gap between prac­tice and aca­demia by imple­ment­ing his exper­i­ences in the edu­ca­tion of Erasmus School of Law.

Sig­ni­fic­ant devel­op­ments in the fin­an­cial sec­tor

The fin­an­cial sec­tor con­veys three big tech­no­lo­gic­al devel­op­ments:  (i) the increas­ing use of big data; (ii) the ever-grow­ing com­puter power lead­ing to far-reach­ing auto­ma­tion of pro­cesses; and (iii) the intro­duc­tion and use of oth­er emer­ging tech­no­lo­gies.  These devel­op­ments bring rad­ic­al change to the way in which fin­an­cial insti­tu­tions oper­ate and cooper­ate.  An import­ant con­sequence of these devel­op­ments is that fin­an­cial insti­tu­tions and oth­er entit­ies respond to and build on each other’s products, data and ser­vices:  the phe­nomen­on known as open bank­ing.  Tech­no­logy also allows entit­ies out­side of the fin­an­cial sec­tor to enter this mar­ket.  The shift from human con­tact, decisions and know­ledge to auto­mated pro­cesses, algorithms, online ser­vices and big data leads to new leg­al issues regard­ing policy, reg­u­la­tion and super­vi­sion.  FinTech can also be found with­in the pay­ment industry.  This industry is evolving from a side activ­ity for cred­it insti­tu­tions to an inde­pend­ent branch of fin­an­cial ser­vices.  The chair “Fin­an­cial Tech­no­logy and Law” makes it pos­sible to research the leg­al frame­work sur­round­ing these tech­no­lo­gic­al and mar­ket devel­op­ments.

Innov­at­ive and mul­tidiscip­lin­ary research

As pro­fess­or of “Fin­an­cial Tech­no­logy and Law”, Van Praag will focus on the use of big data by fin­an­cial insti­tu­tions and the increased cooper­a­tion between fin­an­cial insti­tu­tions and the entry of non-fin­an­cial insti­tu­tions into the pay­ment industry.  “Big data, open bank­ing and the pay­ment industry are con­stantly chan­ging and are extremely inter­est­ing.  I look for­ward to study­ing these top­ics in an aca­dem­ic envir­on­ment along­side my pro­fes­sion­al prac­tice.”

Dean of the Erasmus School of Law, Pro­fess­or Suz­an Stoter, is happy with the appoint­ment.  “With the appoint­ment of Van Praag at the Erasmus School of Law, shows that it is oper­at­ing at the fore­front of study­ing aca­dem­ic issues in com­bin­a­tion with the ever-grow­ing tech­no­lo­gic­al devel­op­ments with­in the fin­an­cial sec­tor.”

The “Fin­an­cial Tech­no­logy and Law” chair fits with­in the ambi­tion of the Erasmus School of Law to con­duct research on reg­u­lat­ory issues with­in the fin­an­cial sec­tor and to fur­ther pos­i­tion and pro­fes­sion­al­ize the field in cooper­a­tion with the adja­cent dis­cip­lines of the Erasmus School of Eco­nom­ics and the Rot­ter­dam School of Man­age­ment.

The Board of HVG Law con­grat­u­lates Emanuel van Praag on this appoint­ment and wishes him suc­cess with his activ­it­ies.