Responsible Financial Technology

Dr Marizah Minhat is an Associate Professor in Finance and Economics. She holds a PhD, and an MSc in Banking and Finance from University of Stirling, and a Master of Laws in Financial Law and Regulation from London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). She completed her undergraduate studies at Lincoln University, New Zealand. She is a Fellow Chartered Accountant (FCA) of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) and Fellow of Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (FCCA), as well as member of Malaysian Institute of Accountants (MIA) and Chartered Accountants Australia & New Zealand (CA ANZ). She is an elected committee/board member of ICAEW Scotland and has served as Tech Sub-Group Facilitator. She is also a member of ICAEW Digital Assets Working Party. 

Dr Minhat was appointed as a Visiting Fellow at the LSE Law School where she completed a research monograph on cryptocurrencies. She founded the Responsible FinTech Research Group and leads a core module in the MSc FinTech programme at the University of Bradford. As an Associate Fellow of Higher Education Academy (HEA), she has served in various roles within higher education institutions in the UK with stints in Hong Kong and Singapore. Her previous roles include Co-Director International Centre for Management and Governance Research (ICMGR). Her recent research project on ‘Cryptocurrencies: Risk and Governance’ was funded by a trust body of Malaysian Institute of Accountants (MIA).

Over a decade of academic career, she has published in finance, economics and human rights journals, and wider media. Her latest co-edited book entitled ‘Ethical Discourse in Finance: Interdisciplinary and Diverse Perspectives’ was published by Palgrave Macmillan. Her previous works and/or research interests are related to financial innovations (including stock options, credit derivatives, Islamic finance, microfinance, and cryptocurrencies/cryptoassets/digital assets), financial regulation and governance including human rights, motivated mainly from economic and social perspectives.

Beyond academia, she had delivered talks at several institutions including Bank Rakyat Malaysia, Confucius Institute for Scotland, Centre for Sustainability Hong Kong and Treasury Markets Association, Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA). She also participated in stakeholder meetings of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Islamic Finance (APPGIF) at the House of Lords, UK Parliament. Prior to her academic career, she worked in Group Finance of a publicly listed government-linked energy company in Malaysia.

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Saeed Akbar is Professor of Accounting and Finance, and Head of Accounting, Finance and Economics, at the University of Bradford School of Management.  He holds a PhD in Accounting and Finance from the Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester, an MA from the University of Liverpool, and a BBA and MBA from the University Peshawar. He is a Qualified Accountant and Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants [CIMA], with the titles 'FCMA and CGMA'.

Prior to joining the University of Bradford, he was a Professor in Accounting and Finance, and Head of Accounting and Finance Subject Group at the Hull University Business School, Lecturer and Senior Lecturer in Accounting and Finance at the University of Liverpool, and MBA tutor at the Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester. His research output has been published extensively in leading international journals, such as, British Journal of Management, Journal of Business Finance and Accounting, The British Accounting Review, Accounting Forum, The International Journal of Accounting, International Review of Financial Analysis, International Journal of Finance and Economics, Journal of Business Research, and International Journal of Management Reviews, amongst others.

His main research area covers the relationship between accounting information and stock prices, while his other broad areas of research expertise include performance measurement, corporate governance, risk management, empirical finance, and accounting regulation, net zero and productivity. 

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Dr Erdinc Akyildirim is an Assistant Professor of Accounting and Finance at School of Management, University of Bradford. He received his PhD in Banking and Finance from University of Zurich and Swiss Finance Institute in 2013.

During his Ph.D., he worked as a teaching assistant at ETH Zurich and he also spent two years as a postdoctoral researcher at ETH working on machine learning applications in Finance.

Before joining academia, he worked at the Industrial Development Bank of Turkey as a derivatives trader and Istanbul Stock Exchange as a project manager for business and product development.

His research interests are in the areas of Quantitative Finance, Fintech, Machine Learning, ESG, and Climate Finance. His research outputs have been published in outlets such as the Journal of Mathematical Economics, Quantitative Finance, Annals of Operations Research, Journal of Corporate Finance, European Financial Management, and European Journal of Finance amongst others.

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Dr Arora has worked earlier as Research Fellow in the Department of Accounting, Finance and Economics, Griffith Business School, Griffith University, Australia. In 2007 she was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Asia Pacific Social Transformation Studies, University of Wollongong, Australia. She has also worked as Assistant Adviser and Research Officer in the Reserve Bank of India (India’s central bank) in its economic policy department for several years before moving to academia.

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Dr Nazam Dzolkarnaini is an Associate Professor in Accounting and Finance. He is an experienced academic with accountancy and financial planning career before embarking academic pathway. He is a Chartered Accountant Fellow (FCA) of the Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (CA ANZ), a Certified Financial Planner (CFP) with CFP Board of Standards, Inc., USA and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA).

His research expertise in corporate finance and corporate governance is directing towards interdisciplinary discourses of socio-economic issues including the ethics of financial industry, the underprivilege and inclusive society, sustainability goals and financial inclusion, and the sociotechnical impact and risks of financial innovations including FinTech, blockchain technology and crypto-assets. He has wide engagement with professional bodies, industry practitioners, charities and societies, and policymakers. He promotes public and community development in his role as a Founding Director, Chairman and Trustee of the Ethical Finance and Investment Research (EFAIR) Foundation. He was called to attend the Stakeholders meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Islamic and Ethical Finance at the House of Lords, UK Parliament.

He sits as Governance and Technical Adviser of Ansar Finance, a charity providing non-interest based financial assistantship in the UK. He has been invited speaking at various organisations including the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), Islamic Development Bank (IDB), Central Bank of Malaysia (BNM), Bank Rakyat Malaysia, Malaysian Institute of Accountants (MIA), UK Trade and Investment Forum, and Rizvi Institute of Management Studies & Research Mumbai.

He has published his research works in a number of academic journals, books and book chapters, and also a regular contributor of opinion pieces in professional publications and financial dailies including The Malaysian Reserve (in partnership with The New York Times). His most recent co-edited book on Ethical Discourse in Finance: Interdisciplinary and Diverse Perspectives has the Foreword penned by the late Lord Sheikh of House of Lords, UK Parliament.

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Mahdi Mousavi (PhD, MSc, MA and BA) is an Associate Professor of Finance at the University of Bradford School of Management. He achieved a PhD in finance from the University of Edinburgh Business School, UK, an MSc in Finance from Essex Business School, UK, and a BA and MA in Financial Management from Iran. Mahdi received a PhD scholarship from the College of Humanities and Social Science of the University of Edinburgh, and an abroad PhD scholarship from the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology of Iran. 

His research interest consists of a variety of topics including the design and performance evaluation of bankruptcy prediction models, credit scoring, corporate finance, and international business. His work has been published in several peer-reviewed international journals, such as Journal of International Management, Expert Systems with Applications, Annals of Operation Research, International Review of Financial Analysis, Journal of Developing Areas, and Journal of Economics, Business and Management. His recent research outcome about the multi-criteria ranking of bankruptcy prediction models is published as a chapter of the book entitled "Advances in DEA Theory and Applications with Extensions to Forecasting Models" by Wiley.

Mahdi teaches a number of executive, postgraduate and undergraduate modules. He developed/leads the MSc FinTech programme at the University of Bradford. Prior to this post, Mahdi was an Assistant Professor of Finance at the American University of Kean in China and a Lecturer of Finance at the University of Economic Science in Iran.  

He has the industry experience and before entering the academic world, worked as a capital market analyst for a number of years. As a result, Mahdi is committed to linking his teaching and research to practice. 

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Muhammad Waqas joined the University of Bradford in January 2020. Previously, he has worked at the University of Leeds, University of York, University of Sheffield and University of Newcastle upon Tyne. He has published in prestigious peer-reviewed journals. His most recent research paper is published in a 4* peer-reviewed journal.

Muhammad is especially interested in economics of migration, applied microeconomics and applied econometrics. Most of his research is on immigration and the issues revolving around immigration. Muhammad’s doctorate is from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. In his PhD, he investigated the aspects of immigration and attitudes towards immigration in England and Wales. He also has dual M.Sc. Economics degrees from Sweden and Pakistan.

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Ilias graduated from the Law School of Aristotle University, Thessaloniki, Greece in 1995. He qualified as a Greek lawyer in 1998. From 2001-2008 Ilias studied law as a LLM and PhD researcher at the University of Bristol. In 2005 he completed his PhD thesis in European Competition Law and in 2009 he completed a LLM by Research on the legal status of Sustainable Development. In 2010 he obtained a Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education Practice at the University of Bradford and in 2019 he completed a MBA degree at the University of Bradford. 

Ilias joined the Law School of the University of Bradford as a full-time lecturer in August 2008.

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Dr Ci Lei has been a Lecturer in Computing at the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Bradford, since October 2013. Prior to this position, he also worked as a post-doctoral research associate at Lancaster University. He has industrial experience in software development, working on various projects including Technology Strategy Board (TSB) funded ones (this is now Innovative UK). Dr Ci Lei has a PhD in Computer Science from University of Bradford. His main research interests are in the areas related to Computer Science including quantum communications and quantum information processing, time-frequency analysis, and large scale data analysis.

He has published research articles in leading international journals, given talks at international conferences, has been an invited speaker at various research seminars, and acted as a reviewer for leading international journals such as the Journal of the Optical Society of America. Dr Ci Lei is a Member of IEEE and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA).

He has taught various computer science and mathematics subjects at both undergraduate (UG) and postgraduate (PG) levels, which includes, UG: Statistics; Fundamental Mathematics; Software Development; Computer Architecture and System Softwares; Numerical Analysis; Differential Equations; Automation and Control; Computer Graphics PG: Computer Crime Investigation; Incident Response and Novel Approaches to Security Dr Ci Lei has jointly supervised four PhD students to completion (2017) and is currently jointly supervising 4 PhD students.

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Jing joined University of Bradford, School of Management, as a Lecturer in Accounting in 2008, and became Senior Lecturer in Accounting in March 2012 and then Reader in Accounting in May 2017. Before joining the School of Management as a lecturer, Jing studied for a PhD in accounting at the School. She has an MA in Finance, Accounting and Management and a bachelors degree in Business and Management Studies. 

During the 10 years of working at the School, Jing has been entrusted with various academic leadership and administrative roles, including Stage tutor (levels 5 & 6 students), Director of Studies for BSc Accounting & Finance programme for over 4 years, Deputy Head for Accounting, Finance and Economics Division, Impact Champion (from Nov 2017 onwards), and more recently Interim Associate Dean - Research & Knowledge Transfer (from June 2018). Jing serves on various university and faculty committees and is currently the coordinator for UoA C17 Business and Management Studies for REF2021.

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Dr Amna Qureshi is a Lecturer in Cybersecurity at the Department of Computer Science of the University of Bradford. Before joining the University of Bradford, Amna worked as a Senior Researcher at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain. Her research interests focus on designing, analysing, and implementing cryptographic protocols with security and privacy guarantees using concepts of applied cryptography, distributed systems, game theory, and logic programming.

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Dr Syed Zubair Shah has an extensive and diverse experience of working in business, public and voluntary sectors with national and international organizations. He started his professional career as a marketing executive in a computer firm selling American products - Wang, Tandy & RadioShack. He remained a member of the civilian police services in Pakistan for almost three decades. He has worked with the United Nations Mission in Bosnia as International Instructor and with the United Nations Integrated Mission in East Timor as Chief of Strategic Planning for UN Police. Working as Project Lead, Dr Shah successfully led the first of its kind community policing initiative in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, funded by Department for International Development, UK. Dr Shah has also been a fellow of the prestigious International Visitor’s Leadership Program of the Department of State, United States Government. He has also successfully qualified the Forensic Interviewing Course from Canadian Police College Ottawa, besides completing numerous other courses in diverse areas of interest.  

Prior to competing his PhD from the University of Bradford, Dr Shah had received master’s degrees in Transnational Crime Prevention with Distinction from the University of Wollongong Australia (AUSAID Scholarship), MA(ECON) in Public Policy and Management, first position, from the University of Manchester UK (Britannia Chevening Scholarship), and Master of Public Administration from Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad. He is an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy UK and a member of British Accounting and Finance Association. His research interests include corporate fraud specifically tax, accounting and executive compensation frauds, audit and regulatory quality, corporate governance, financial crisis, debt crisis, interest rate regimes, diversity-based research and market-based accounting research.

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He joined the University of Bradford as an Associate Professor of Artificial Intelligence for Business and Director of PGR Studies (PhD) within the School of Management. In his previous capacity, he was a Professor of Management Science, Director of Research, and Elected Member of the University Senate.  

He is a postdoctoral research fellow in maritime studies from National University of Singapore (NUS) and has Executive Certificates from the MIT Sloan School of Management (USA), Harvard Business School (USA), and IE Business School (Spain). He started his academic career in 1998. Overall, he has 25 years of teaching, research, and consulting experience in various countries, having been a full professor and director of research for more than a decade in triple-crown (accredited by AACSB, EQUIS, and AMBA) business schools. He is a Visiting Chair Professor at the Ming Chuan University in Taipei, Taiwan. Further, he was an Honorary Professor at Maastricht School of Management, The Netherlands, and an Affiliated Distinguished Research Professor at CENTRUM PUCP, Peru. He was awarded an FHEA status from Advance HE, UK. He is a Fellow of the Pan-Pacific Business Association (PPBA), USA; a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society, UK; a Council Member of the Global Urban Competitiveness Project (GUCP), USA; a Higher Education Teaching and Learning Association Liaison to Peru, HETL USA; and a WiDS Ambassador 2018, WiDS Buckingham (in collaboration with Stanford University, USA). He is also an AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner and Accredited Educator and Advance HE Certified External Examiner, UK, as well as a Six Sigma Black Belt. He also has industry experience as a Chief Analytics Officer and has worked on projects in the telecommunications and retail industries.

He has received numerous international academic honours and awards, and has extensive experience organising and running executive and management development programmes, as well as CPD training programmes for both industry and academia around the world. He has published over 150 research outputs and serves on the editorial boards of several prestigious journals. 

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Giray is an Associate Professor of Economics/Finance at the School of Management, University of Bradford. He received a PhD in Economics from Istanbul University in 2012. He worked as a visiting scholar at Ghent University (2013/14) and the University of California, Irvine (2014/15). He was promoted to Full Professor at Istanbul Medeniyet University in 2020.

He is currently the Research Affiliate of the CESifo Network at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) and the Research Associate of the Centre for Blockchain Technologies at the University College London (UCL).

He has been listed in the IDEAS/RePEc Economist Rankings (Top 1% Authors, Last 10 Years Publications). He has also been listed in the IDEAS/RePEc Top 200 Young Economists (15 Years or Less). He has also been included in the UK's IDEAS/RePEc Top 1% Economists (Last 10 Years Publications). He has also appeared in Stanford University World's Top 2% Scientists Ranking in 2020, 2021 & 2022, and his 2022 ranking makes him among the top 0.1% of Scientists in the World.

He has published almost 120 papers in the Web of Science (SSCI and SCIE) indexed journals, including 4* and 3* ABS Journals, such as Annals of Tourism Research; Economics Letters; Energy Economics; International Journal of Finance & Economics; International Review of Financial Analysis; Journal of Human Capital; Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions & Money; Journal of Travel Research; and Public Choice.

He has been the external reviewer of project proposals for several national science foundations, including Chile, Kazakhstan, Poland, Switzerland, and Turkey.    

He is currently Associate Editor at the Technological Forecasting and Social Change, International Journal of Finance & Economics, PLOS One, Heliyon-Business and Economics, Eastern European Economics, Humanities & Social Sciences Communications, China Finance Review International, and SN Business & Economics.

His research interests include applied econometrics, climate change economics, financial economics, international economics, international finance, and political economy.

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