Legal Counsel

If you are looking to join a FinTech start-up with incredible prospects for the future, look no further. This organisation is a high-tech account-to-account payments company. Its mission is to make payments easy by leveraging open banking and innovative financial technology.

They have just announced that one of the largest banks is creating a new payment platform, and this organisation is one of the three organisations that have been instructed. They require someone to join with experience in FinTech/Banking, to help them shape the future growth of the business, including in other jurisdictions such as the EU.

The Company:

They are a small business, snowballing. One year ago, there were 3 of them. They are now at around 28 people with plans to expand to 40 this year.

It aims to reduce trade frictions, make inefficient markets efficient, and speed up economic progress.

They are operating in an exciting space with limitless potential, and they are already growing at an incredible pace, but there's plenty left to do, and they need a great lawyer to help them achieve their goals.

You will find their approach refreshing and inspiring; their culture is based on valuing every staff member.

The Role: Legal Counsel:

The company has bases in London and Oxford, and you can be largely remote in this role with attendance to a HQ where required on an ad-hoc basis.

They are looking for an experienced Lawyer to lead its legal and compliance responsibilities. You should take ownership of your work and be proud of the company you are building.

This role is an exciting opportunity to see you become a key figure in a rapidly growing business. You will be working closely with both the CEO and the CTO, the two co-founders, managing the company and driving forward its expansion efforts.

Though this is a legal role, you should have a strong interest in business, technology and finance. You will have to balance between maturity in governance and processes and the practical considerations of a fast-growth scale up.
They work as a team, utilising collective experience and knowledge. Naturally, they will be supportive when required, but this does not slow down their decision-making agility.

Responsibilities:

• Legal & Compliance: ad-hoc legal requirements, including/not limited to: data protection rules, privacy policies, employment contracts, shareholder agreements, business contracts, and engagement letters.
• International expansion: they will open offices elsewhere in the EU and soon further abroad outside the EU. You will lead and manage this evolution from a legal perspective, assuring we adhere to local legal and compliance requirements as a company, employer and regulated entity.
• Regulatory Requirements: they are regulated by the UK FCA as an Authorised Payment Institution. So, you will handle the various requirements, reporting and ongoing responsibilities here. On top of this, they are looking for enhanced regulatory approvals and licenses, both in the UK and abroad. You will lead the application processes.
• Projects, operations & public policy: you will help manage internal company projects and potentially complex integrations involving multiple stakeholders and processes with third parties. The organisation has different partnerships, such as distribution platform partnerships, underlying infrastructure partnerships, and key client partnerships. They want you to help manage these partnerships, assuring they are well looked after. The company is also involved in multiple trade and government-related bodies to develop open banking further (domestically and abroad) in which you would represent the company.

Requirements:

• You will be an experienced Solicitor with two or more years of experience working within payments or banking from a legal perspective.
• Ideally, you will have qualified from a top tier law firm and have had experience with a start-up/scale-up business.
• You will have strong technical knowledge in the relevant areas of law.
• Outstanding communication skills.

Salary & Benefits

• Competitive salary of 90-120k (there is some flexibility for the right people)
• Equity options
• Pension and health insurance plans
• Flexible working: work from home or their London office
• Company retreats and strategic off-sites

All in all, this is an excellent opportunity to work for this growing start-up in the FinTech world either remotely or from their office in London or a mixture of the two