Head of Legal (UK)

Paybis is a global fintech company operating at the intersection of crypto and traditional payments. Since 2014, we've been building products that help people and businesses buy, sell, and exchange cryptocurrency. We serve 8.6M+ customers across 180+ countries and operate as a self-funded company with ~200 people across Europe, Ukraine, and the US.

We hold a MiCA CASP authorisation and a Payment Institution (PSD2) licence in Latvia — one of a small group of companies in Europe holding both simultaneously — alongside FinCEN MSB and FINTRAC registrations, and a VASP registration in Poland. The United Kingdom is now a priority market for us, and we are hiring a Head of Legal (UK) to own it.

The FCA published its final rules for the UK cryptoasset regime on 30 June 2026, and the regime commences on 25 October 2027. Every crypto business operating in the UK now has a decision to make and an authorisation to win. As Head of Legal (UK) at Paybis, you own ours.

This is a single-jurisdiction role with a single, clear mandate: take Paybis through FCA authorisation under the new regime, run the UK EMI application alongside it, and build the UK legal foundation that follows. You will report directly to the CEO and work as a peer to our Head of Legal (EU), who owns the European regulatory estate and the existing in-house team.

You will not inherit a team, and you will not inherit a queue. What you inherit is a live business with real UK volume, a regulatory deadline that does not move, and the authority to decide how we meet it. The work goes straight to the regulator with your name on it.

We have deliberately scoped this role narrowly. MiCA, PSD2, the Latvian EMI and the European estate sit with our Head of Legal (EU). Your perimeter is the UK, plus the other applications where common-law experience carries across. Within that perimeter you are the most senior legal voice in the company.

If you are a UK regulatory lawyer who wants to own an authorisation rather than advise on one — and you would rather be the person who decides than the person who writes the memo — this is a rare brief.

UK Regulatory

• Own the FCA cryptoasset authorisation end to end — perimeter analysis of our B2C and B2B activities against the new regime, application strategy, drafting, regulatory business plan input, RFI handling, and dialogue through to decision
• Own the UK EMI application on the same basis, and decide how the two processes sequence against each other
• Act as our senior in-house legal counterpart to the FCA
• Own the UK conduct perimeter: the financial promotions regime for cryptoassets, consumer duty considerations, travel rule under the UK regime, safeguarding and prudential requirements
• Prepare the business for what follows authorisation, not just the application itself — governance, senior manager and certification considerations, reporting and disclosures
• Brief, direct and quality-control UK external counsel, and own that budget

International Expansion

• Legal lead on our Jersey (JFSC) and Australia (AUSTRAC / AFSL) applications
• Advise on UK/EU regulatory interaction where the two perimeters meet, including how UK-facing activity is structured against our MiCA CASP and PSD2 entity

Commercial & UK Employment Legal

• Draft and negotiate English-law B2B agreements: master services agreements, API and white-label terms, referral and agent agreements
• Own UK banking, payment and card scheme counterparty agreements
• Own UK-facing consumer terms, financial promotions review and UK-specific disclosure requirements
• Own UK employment law and contractor arrangements, working with HR

Cross-Functional

• Work in genuine partnership with our Head of Legal (EU) — one legal function with two jurisdictional owners, not two functions running in parallel
• Support our Global Chief of Compliance on UK AML/CTF legal framework questions
• Represent UK regulatory status to the leadership team, with a standing item in the

Must have

• Qualified solicitor or barrister in England & Wales, typically with 8+ years PQE in regulated financial services, fintech, payments or crypto
• At least one FCA authorisation or variation of permission that you personally owned or materially led — from perimeter analysis through drafting and RFI dialogue to decision. We are looking for your own work, not a process you supported
• Hands-on crypto or digital-asset legal experience gained at a licensed or recognised firm — a registered or authorised exchange, a regulated on/off-ramp, a licensed custodian, or an established infrastructure provider
• Direct, personal ownership of correspondence or representation before the FCA
• Substantive English-law B2B commercial contract experience — able to draft and negotiate complex fintech agreements without sending the first draft to external counsel
• The ability to take a legal position and stand behind it under CEO or counterparty pressure. Advisors who will not commit to a view are not the right fit for this role
• A high-autonomy operating mode: you identify the question, propose the route, and close it out without being directed
• Comfort being the only senior lawyer in your jurisdiction, in a company whose leadership team sits in Riga
• Fluent professional English to the standard required for regulator-facing correspondence
• The existing right to work in the UK, and the ability to obtain FCA fit & proper approval where the role requires it

Nice to have

• Prior Head of Legal, General Counsel or senior counsel role at a UK-authorised EMI, PI or FCA-registered cryptoasset firm
• Direct involvement in the FCA's 2025–26 cryptoasset consultations — responses, industry working groups, or trade association engagement
• Existing FCA supervisory relationships
• Experience taking a firm from AML registration through to full FSMA authorisation
• SM&CR / senior manager regime experience
• UK safeguarding and prudential requirements for e-money and payments
• Crown dependency (Jersey, Guernsey, Isle of Man) or Australian regulatory exposure
• Card scheme legal experience — Visa/Mastercard rules, principal membership, dispute frameworks
• Experience building a legal or regulatory function in a single jurisdiction from scratch
• Hands‑on use of AI tools in legal drafting, research, review or monitoring — we will ask you about this, and we are genuinely interested in what you have built
• LLM in financial regulation, payments or technology law

• A first-wave authorisation under a brand-new regime. Very few lawyers get to own one of these. Your application goes to the FCA with your reasoning in it, and the company's UK market access rests on the outcome
• Direct report to the CEO — your work shapes company strategy rather than supporting it
• Real decision rights. Within the UK perimeter you are the senior legal voice. We do not route decisions through committees
• One of Europe's most interesting regulatory portfolios: MiCA CASP and PSD2 PI already granted, with other authorisations in active pipeline
• A narrow, honest mandate. We have scoped this role deliberately rather than asking one person to cover everything — you will not be spread across two continents
• A self-funded, stable company with no investor pressure and no funding‑round clock shaping legal decisions
• Remote-first with high autonomy — we do not micromanage senior professionals
• Commercial legal at genuine scale — 82% of our volume is institutional and B2B, across a partner ecosystem of crypto exchanges, neobanks, PSPs, EMIs, wallets, gaming platforms and Web3 companies
• Medical insurance, L&D budget, performance-based bonus linked to the authorisation milestones, English classes, and regular team events

We aim to reach an offer decision within four weeks of your first conversation with us.

• HR interview (60 min) — your background, motivation, communication style, and how you prefer to operate
• Head of Legal, EU (60 min) — regulatory depth, and how the two of you would work together as peers across the UK and EU perimeters
• CEO interview (60 min) — legal philosophy, regulatory depth, commercial judgment, and the ownership examples behind your CV
• Practical exercise — a real question from our UK portfolio: here is what we do in the UK today, walk us through how you would approach authorisation. We are assessing how you reason, not whether you reach a predetermined answer
• Reference check — ideally including a C-level peer, and where possible someone who worked with you on an authorisation

Paybis is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome lawyers who take ownership seriously, can make a decision under pressure, and want to build something that a company at our stage of growth actually needs.

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