Senior Counsel, Regulatory

Our Purpose

Mastercard powers economies and empowers people in 200+ countries and territories worldwide. Together with our customers, we’re helping build a sustainable economy where everyone can prosper. We support a wide range of digital payments choices, making transactions secure, simple, smart and accessible. Our technology and innovation, partnerships and networks combine to deliver a unique set of products and services that help people, businesses and governments realize their greatest potential.

Title and Summary

Senior Counsel, Regulatory

Who is Mastercard?

Mastercard is a global technology company in the payments industry. Our mission is to connect and power an inclusive, digital economy that benefits everyone, everywhere by making transactions safe, simple, smart, and accessible. Using secure data and networks, partnerships and passion, our innovations and solutions help individuals, financial institutions, governments, and businesses realize their greatest potential.

Our decency quotient drives our culture and everything we do inside and outside of our company. With connections across more than 210 countries and territories, we are building a sustainable world that unlocks priceless possibilities for all.

Overview

Mastercard’s global Regulatory organisation is looking for a Senior Counsel to join its Europe team, reporting to the Assistant General Counsel, Regulatory for Europe. The role will have lead responsibility for managing Mastercard’s oversight as a Systemically Important Payment System (SIPS) in Europe and a Recognised Payment System in the UK. It will be responsible for advising on the oversight requirements and related impacts across multiple areas of the business. The role is a legal, rather than a compliance role, but will work very closely with Mastercard’s regulatory compliance team on all aspects of oversight. In addition, the role will be involved in a number of other important regulatory issues across in Europe, including critical infrastructure designation, treasury/settlement issues, tax and technology modernisation.

Collectively, this will involve a high degree of collaborative working with many others across the Mastercard organisation including business counterparts outside the Europe region in roles potentially including Technology, Finance, Risk, Product, Operations, Settlement and many more. The successful candidate will be part of a global group that manages Mastercard’s regulatory footprint under the leadership of Mastercard’s General Counsel, Regulatory.

Role

• Provides advice and guidance on the SIPS Regulation, the PISA oversight framework and various Bank of England Codes and supervisory statements to Regulatory colleagues and internal business teams most impacted by oversight, building close trusted relationships and establishing a reputation as the subject matter expert
• Providing legal/regulatory advice to business stakeholders on the impact of oversight requirements on product development and technology and contributing subject matter expertise with respect to operational requirements, policies and procedures
• In partnership with Compliance, engaging with the European Central Bank, National Bank of Belgium and Bank of England on oversight issues, as well as advocating and defending Mastercard’s position or approach
• Assessing the impact of external regulatory initiatives on Mastercard, working across the business to develop positioning and drafting relevant consultation responses
• Acting as a liaison to business and/or functional departments in connection with regulatory engagements including regulatory examinations, meetings and other interactions.
• Managing external counsel as necessary, and reviewing and analysing regulatory advice for advancing strategic initiatives

All About You

• A lawyer qualified to practice within the Europe region, with mid-level experience, ideally to have included time working in-house within a retail bank, regulated payments business or central bank/relevant regulator
• A strong understanding of systemic importance / prudential regulation, combined with the role of Financial Market Infrastructures within the payments ecosystem
• Solid understanding of relevant Europe payments regulation and the broader regulatory and policy landscape
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, combined with an ability to communicate complex regulatory issues in simple and concise terms
• Must demonstrate a proactive, time sensitive, results driven approach in carrying out all duties, obligations and responsibilities
• Experience of operating within a multi-faceted organisation working closely with a variety of teams – legal, public policy, communications, commercial, finance etc
• Self-starter / motivated to work independently and as an effective team member
• A strong commercial awareness, risk-based approach and “yes, if” attitude to providing regulatory advice

Corporate Security Responsibility

All activities involving access to Mastercard assets, information, and networks comes with an inherent risk to the organization and, therefore, it is expected that every person working for, or on behalf of, Mastercard is responsible for information security and must:

• Abide by Mastercard’s security policies and practices;
• Ensure the confidentiality and integrity of the information being accessed;
• Report any suspected information security violation or breach, and
• Complete all periodic mandatory security trainings in accordance with Mastercard’s guidelines.