Legal Counsel - UK

Job description

About the job

You’ll undertake a wide range of legal matters relating to Wise’s day to day and strategic initiatives. Your mission is to enable, protect and empower the business and people of Wise to help achieve growth with minimal distraction.

To achieve this you’ll be: Working closely and building relationships with multiple business teams across the UK, EMEA and multi-regional to advise on a wide range of legal matters and ad hoc issues as they arise, including financial regulation, consumer protection, payments, banking, marketing standards and partnerships; Working with the business and other members of the global Legal team and outside counsel on new product launches, market expansions including license applications, corporate matters and commercial agreements; Part of the core team of lawyers owning all aspects of the contract lifecycle with bank partners, online platforms, and enterprise customers, from structuring and drafting to negotiation.

Responsible for assessing and advising the business on risks specific to API integrations, including country risk, feature launches, regulatory implications, and the overall relationship with a bank partner or online platform. Structuring and drafting multi-party commercial agreements, including allocating regulatory obligations, commercial terms, and KYC/AML responsibilities across several counterparties in a single deal; Advising on regulatory positioning in new and emerging markets, including reviewing external counsel memoranda, assessing local licensing and registration risk and drafting contractual language to manage regulatory exposure

Mentoring and upskilling the business teams and other members of the Legal team including supervising responses to Legal support queries, making life simple and easy; Understanding the real risks to the business and advising on the operational impact and practicalities of those risks; Reviewing current practices and developing and maintaining templates; Streamlining processes and structuring tasks related to legal matters globally; Staying up to date on legal developments in the UK and advising on future-looking initiatives; and

Working with the global Legal team to support the wider needs of Wise, for example training and workshops.

Qualifications

About you

We’re looking for someone passionate about payments, fintech and/or finance and with an eye on the future.

You’ll have: 5 - 7 years PQE and be a UK qualified (or another common law jurisdiction), with strong post-qualification commercial experience Experience in the banking or payments industry; Previous law firm or in-house experience, focusing on payments, card processing, financial service, banking or investments; A proven aptitude for commercial contract structuring, drafting, and negotiation; A strong interest and experience in financial services regulation including payments, consumer protection, banking and investments; A broad legal knowledge that enables you to spot and resolve a variety of legal issues in upcoming product offerings (e.g. regulatory, contract, IP, privacy, consumer protection, risk); and an ability to distill complexity and to identify and clearly communicate practical, risk-based solutions; A focus on impact, through trusted relationships and attention to detail

Clear communication, project coordination, and management skills, including for partner relations; Ability to navigate complex issues and multiple stakeholders, advising the business on key risks, and developing solutions.

Have a get-it-done, collaborative approach to problem solving.