The European Banking Institute (EBI) 

together with

The Hamburg Network for AI & Law (NAIL)

are pleased to invite you to participate in the

CALL FOR PAPERS

for their joint (in-person)

NAIL Conference 2026
“AI, Finance & Law: Innovation, Integrity, and the Future of Markets”

on 2 & 3 July 2026
in Hamburg, Germany

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming financial markets at remarkable speed. From automated credit scoring and algorithmic trading to RegTech and SupTech applications, AI increasingly shapes market behaviour, compliance processes, and supervisory practices. At the same time, it challenges established legal frameworks concerning risk management, liability, governance, consumer protection, and market integrity.

The global regulatory landscape is fragmented: while the EU has adopted the AI Act and is integrating AI governance into financial services legislation (including MiFID II/MiFIR, DORA, PSD2/3, etc), other jurisdictions – including the UK, US, and jurisdictions in Asia – pursue different, often more principles-based or sector-specific approaches.

This conference aims to bring together leading scholars and practitioners from around the world in law, economics, and related disciplines to analyse how AI is reshaping financial regulation, and what coherent legal responses might require.

We welcome theoretical, doctrinal, empirical, economic, and interdisciplinary contributions, and seek to explore a broad range of regulatory issues in relation to, inter alia, the following aspects:

• How should financial markets law respond to the adoption of AI systems by financial institutions and intermediaries? What are the economic effects of AI-driven financial markets, and are there risks to market integrity, efficiency, and to market stability?
• What governance mechanisms ensure accountability, transparency, and auditability of AI in financial services? How can market supervisors and investors effectively monitor the integrity of new AI-driven market players?
• How does the EU AI Act interact with existing and upcoming financial regulator frameworks? How does the AI Act and associated rules apply to financial-markets usecases such as algorithmic trading, risk models, and credit scoring?
• How can regulators balance innovation, competition, and financial stability in regulating AI? What forms of legal experimentation (sandboxing, testbeds, proportionality tools) support safe AI adoption and ensure innovation?

Call for Papers Submission Process

The conference organizers invite papers from scholars, policymakers, and practitioners on each of these topics, and on any other topic of relevance to the conference theme. In particular, the organisers encourage the submission of papers that examine these topics from an interdisciplinary, international and/or comparative perspective.

Papers should be submitted online at https://forms.cloud.microsoft/e/AiNwn0fwmk.

To facilitate blind review, names and other identifying information should be redacted from the submitted paper. Any queries related to the submission process can be directed to nail@ilehamburg.de.

Deadline for submission of papers for the conference is 23 January 2026.

Authors will be notified regarding whether their paper has been accepted for presentation at the conference by 20 February 2026.

More information is available via http://NAIL.ile-hamburg.de.

Download Conference Outline and Call-for-Papers here!

Detailed conference information to follow closer to time.