Asia is the largest continent in the world with almost fifty countries, each country having unique financial regulations. The Research Handbook on Asian Financial Law (Handbook) manages to cover most of the prominent financial regulatory models at both the national and regional levels through the lens of regional scholars. The Handbook is divided into five parts, each of which features key issues on financial regulation, financial integration, fintech, and studies on a national level of several outstanding models in Asia.

The Handbook is more helpful for scholars, students, and researchers for its detailed descriptions of legal frameworks of various jurisdictions in Asia, since the lack of case studiesFootnote ¹ limits the book from offering a practical view for legal practitioners.

Part I highlights the structure of the Handbook, including the historical development of financial regulatory principles and theories providing the reader with an overview of the book's content.

Part II focuses on the financial regulatory models in Asian countries to illustrate the different governance mechanism models. The analysis ranges from the comparative study of regulation to bank resolutions, securities market networks, trading regimes, the provision of derivatives facilities by technology, and efforts to utilize the Renminbi and offshore Renminbi market.

Part III is titled “Financial Integration in Asia”. However, it focuses mostly on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) area and examines the role played by ASEAN in the region. Part III manages to cover the essence of the ASEAN region/cross-border bond market, the security market, consumer financial dispute resolutions, and insolvency.

Part IV offers a vertical study of cross-border countries, from general issues to the prudential risk-minimizing bank resolution regulations. Further, the handbook analyzes the development of banks and the way in which consumers are protected under the financial laws of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Macau.

Part V provides an overview of fintech regulations in various jurisdictions on different aspects, including sandboxes, venture capital, virtual banks, crowdfunding, and virtual currency insolvency in various Asian countries, focusing on Hong Kong, Japan, China, and Taiwan. This chapter successfully explains the rationale of the regulatory sandbox and how the eligibility criteria for the sandbox vary in difference jurisdictions. However, in comparison to other literature,Footnote ² this chapter did not make the best use of a comparative method to highlight different approaches by each country toward the same aspect, it merely provides a description of the regulatory framework of each country.

The Handbook has done a great job in providing comprehensive information of the legal framework from various jurisdictions from different financial aspects. However, the Handbook mainly covers Southeast Asia and East Asia, and excludes other Asian regions, which might confuse readers looking for those other regions. Additionally, being a research handbook, more comparative tables and diagrams could be used to briefly summarize the differences between jurisdictions and help readers quickly gain an overview before diving into the details.