VP Legal Counsel UK Retail Core Banking

Summary of Role 

The role sits in the Banking Products team and reports into the lead counsel for retail core banking.  The Banking Products team supports the development of products and propositions across all of the bank's customer segments (Community, Premier, Wealth and Business) for multiple business areas (Retail Banking, Business Banking, Savings and Insurance).   There will be opportunities to work and develop new skills across all of these different areas. 

Purpose of Role 

The purpose of the role is to work with existing members of the Banking Products and wider Legal team to provide support and expert legal advice on all aspects of the bank's current and proposed product offerings.  The successful candidate will need the ability to work independently and flexibly, across a range of products and services in order to identify risk and to plan for change brought by developing regulation, structural reform and Brexit.

                  Key Accountabilities

• Act as a trusted advisor and deliver expert legal advice in relation to the laws and regulations governing financial services products, notably those applicable to the UK Retail market.         
• To partner with the Business, delivering a best in class legal service that enables the business to deliver on their objectives, whilst effectively managing legal risk and ensuring good outcomes for the bank’s customers.
• To provide input to the strategy and delivery of initiatives both within the business and the Legal function.
• Membership of various Business risk and operating committees.  Proactively identifying and advising on legal and regulatory risks, escalating these as necessary to stakeholders, and assisting with recommending and implementing solutions, including in relation to the implementation of new legislation and regulatory requirements;
• Proactively identifying and advising on legal and regulatory risks, escalating these as necessary to stakeholders, and assisting with recommending and implementing solutions, including in relation to the implementation of new legislation and regulatory requirements; and
• Working collaboratively with members of the bank's Legal team, the wider Legal function, the business and other infrastructure functions to:
  • assist with the development of new products; and
  • provide input to new and existing policies and procedures to ensure that any changes to processes are within the permitted legal and regulatory framework;

• Providing support, as required, in relation to other matters being worked on by the Legal team, including regulatory change impacting consumers and SMEs, structural reform and the implications of Brexit.

                  Person Specification

• Acts as a trusted advisor to business and other infrastructure areas;
• Contributes to industry-wide initiatives with a good network amongst peer-group externally;
• Builds strong risk partnerships with colleagues in other functions;
• Identifies and escalates non-legal as well as legal risk issues;
• Contributes to the creation of policies and controls;
• Strong understanding of, and proactively works towards, business objectives;
• Adds value in commercial as well as technical discussions;
• Consistently delivers against a broad range of competing targets;
• Drives good cost control behaviour, especially around external spend;
• Contributes to the development and implementation of team objectives and strategy;
• Proactively collaborates across different teams and geographies both within and beyond Legal to break down silos;
• Supports and develops other members of the team, and is able to act as a mentor and role model to develop junior team members.

Essential Skills/Basic Qualifications:

• Solicitor or barrister qualified in the UK or equivalent commonwealth jurisdiction
• Experience of working in a top law firm and/or in-house with a top financial services organisation
• Displays strong communication, influencing and negotiation skills
• Proven technical expertise in financial markets and regulation with the ability to work across a broad set of products and sensitivity to the issues presented by a retail-facing business

Desirable skills/Preferred Qualifications:

• Regulatory technical expertise in financial services including experience of advising on EU regulation (for example, Payment Services Regulation, Consumer Credit, Data Protection).
• Project management – including advising and leading on implementation of new regulation

     Note: currently all staff are working remotely,  interviews and onboarding will be conducted remotely