Dr Matthew Shillito LL.B (Hons), LL.M, Ph.D, FHEA.

Personal Statement

Matt was appointed as a lecturer in law in the School of Law and Social Justice in August 2015. He lectures in Banking Law and Financial Services Law.

His current research develops themes and issues around financial crime (in particular money laundering and terrorist financing), non-traditional payment methods, banking law and charity law.

Matt also engages with stakeholders beyond academia. Alongside Dr. Rob Stokes, he submitted a joint response to the government 'call for information on the use of digital currencies'. The focus of the submission was on the regulatory implications surrounding increasing usage of digital currencies and a number of our proposals were reflected in the Government’s response. In 2014, Matt was also a visiting scholar in the Department of Business Law and Taxation at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. On top of developing the Australian case study of his thesis, the trip provided the opportunity to present at various conferences, including an invited presentation to the Australian Bankers Association at their Sydney offices. He was also invited by the Australian Centre for Financial Studies to take part in their academic roundtable which was responding to the Financial Services Inquiry Interim Report.

Prior to undertaking the lectureship, Matt was a student at the University of Liverpool and holds an LL.B, as well as an LL.M in International Business Law. Following the LL.M, Matt undertook his doctoral thesis, which focuses on non-traditional payment methods and their money laundering and terrorist financing risks, and was fully funded with a Graduate Teaching Assistant position.

Matt is currently supervising two doctoral students:

- Michal Smyk is examining the aspects of global anti-money laundering regime, with a particular emphasis around the concept of beneficial ownership.
- Elin Williams is analysing the abuse of cryptocurrencies on the Dark Web, in particular the risk they present in relation to different financial crimes.

Matt would be happy to hear from potential postgraduate research students about supervising projects in the following areas:

- Law and policy on tackling 'Dark Web' crime;
- Regulation of cryptocurrencies for the purposes of preventing financial crime;
- International efforts to counter financial crime (particularly anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing); and
- Any of the above, as they relate to charities and the nonprofit sector.