Senior Regulatory Counsel, Americas

Responsibilities

• Be responsible for handling regulatory legal issues relating to our business across the Americas, and for providing strategic advice to cross-functional stakeholders relating to our existing licenses/registrations and potential future licence applications in the region, to ensure Airwallex can successfully scale in the Americas.
• Monitor, report, and influence trends and developments in payments and financial services regulation in the Americas, actively identifying and anticipating changes that may impact business operations or strategic objectives.
• Partner closely with Product Legal, Regulatory Compliance, Risk and Financial Crime Compliance teams to ensure robust compliance with applicable laws and regulations, including money transmission, stored value, FX, remittance and card issuing rules in relevant markets.
• Support local and global Product, Strategy, and Management teams and regional Commercial teams on new market entry and expansion of regulatory licence(s) in the Americas, providing regulatory mapping and licensing advice for new products and features.
• Liaise with senior Airwallex stakeholders globally, providing timely, pragmatic regulatory legal advice and risk assessments on various business initiatives impacting the Americas region.
• Manage external legal counsel and consultants in the Americas, ensuring high-quality, cost-effective support aligned with Airwallex's business drivers and risk appetite.
• Leverage AI and other tooling to enhance the scale, efficiency and effectiveness of the Regulatory Legal team.
• Provide legal advice on Airwallex's regulatory compliance obligations with respect to ongoing regulatory compliance and submission of regulatory reports and filings in relevant Americas jurisdictions, partnering with the Regulatory Compliance team to ensure timely and accurate filings.
• Support government relations outreach to legislators and regulatory agencies in key Americas markets, helping to shape policy and regulatory approaches relevant to the business.

Requirements

• Qualified lawyer with 8 years of relevant post-qualification experience.
• Strong regulatory experience gained in the fintech industry, reputable law firms and/or financial institutions, ideally with exposure to payments, e-money, FX, remittances and/or card issuing in the Americas region.
• Deep experience and demonstrated success advising on regulatory matters and handling regulatory submissions, filings and regulatory strategy in financial services or payments, ideally including direct engagement with regulators in key Americas markets (e.g. federal and state/provincial regulators).
• Strong understanding of the financial services regulatory environment in the Americas, particularly as relates to payments, remittance, FX, issuing and digital financial services.
• Strong stakeholder management skills, with the ability to work cross-functionally and build trust with business, legal, compliance and external counsel stakeholders.
• Proactive, results-driven, and ownership-oriented, with a clear track record of managing multiple priorities and deadlines.
• Able to influence, explain complex legal topics to non-lawyers, and frame business-relevant solutions.
• Collaborative team player, embraces managing ambiguity, and thriving in fast-paced, evolving environments.

Qualifications

• A mix of private practice and in-house experience.
• Experience supporting expansion into new markets and launching new regulatory licences in the fintech, payments, or financial services sectors.
• Experience advising on consumer and commercial regulatory matters, including state money transmitter licensing (MTL) requirements and oversight by federal prudential regulators, with familiarity in regulations such as Reg E, UDAAP, and TILA.
• Experience using, deploying or developing RegTech, LegalTech or AI tools to enhance the legal function.
• Canadian payment processing and money services business experience including familiarity with RPAA, Fintrac and provincial financial licensing.