Senior Legal Counsel

Funding Circle UK; London; Hybrid; GBP 80,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading Fintech company is looking for a Senior Legal Counsel to join its Legal & Compliance team. This role includes providing strategic legal guidance on financial service regulations and contract management, perfect for an experienced lawyer with expertise in credit and payments infrastructure. The position offers a chance to impact small businesses by supporting innovative financial solutions.

Benefits

Private Medical Insurance

Dental Insurance

Health Cash Plan

Flexible working arrangements

Annual Learning & Development allowance

Qualifications

• Strong background in corporate or commercial law required.
• Experience in finance, especially with credit cards and lending, preferred.
• Understanding of data privacy legislation is beneficial.

Responsibilities

• Providing legal advice on business initiatives and regulatory compliance.
• Drafting and negotiating contracts related to financial services.
• Advising on emerging technologies and maintaining legal standards.

Skills

Corporate law

Commercial law

Regulatory compliance

Contract negotiation

Risk management

Education

Law degree

Job description

Senior Legal Counsel

We are looking for a Senior Legal Counsel to join our Legal & Compliance team; the go-to experts for legal and regulatory advice on Funding Circle’s commercial and business activities.

This is an exciting opportunity for an experienced lawyer, ideally with a strong background in credit cards and revolving credit and a good understanding of payments infrastructure, to join an innovative, fast-paced and market-changing Fintech.

Who are we?

We’re Funding Circle. We back small businesses to succeed.

At Funding Circle, we believe the world needs small businesses. That’s why we’ve made it our mission to help them get the finance they need to grow.

With more than a decade of expertise under our belt, we’ve built a game-changer of a platform with cutting-edge data and technology that’s reshaping the landscape of SME lending. Say goodbye to lengthy applications and hello to lightning-fast decisions! In just minutes, SMEs across the UK can get a decision, giving them access to competitive funding in a flash.

We know that good business is about good people. So we pride ourselves on providing meaningful, human support as well as fast, hassle free processes to deliver an unbeatable customer experience.

The role

Working closely with stakeholders across Product, Technology, Sales, Brand and Marketing, Data, People and Compliance to provide comprehensive, pragmatic and timely legal advice on all kinds of business initiatives including intellectual property, data protection and privacy and financial services regulation including payments infrastructure and credit.
Partnering with various teams to assist new product design and implementation from a legal perspective; and advise on use of emerging technologies such as robotic automation and artificial intelligence, data security and data strategy.
Advising on and drafting a range of contracts including our customer terms and conditions, technology service contracts with a particular focus on payment processing and credit card scheme rules, partnership agreements with financial service providers, and contracts for marketing, outsourcing, employment and consultancy.
Taking the lead on understanding and navigating the broad regulatory environment for payments and lending, proactively advising and challenging the business on regulatory issues, and horizon scanning to proactively identify changes in law and regulation.
Taking a hands-on role in the optimisation of the legal function through the adoption of technology and identifying other areas for improvements and greater efficiency, supervising and mentoring junior members of the team; and managing relationships with external legal counsel and law firms.
• Proactively problem solving, identifying and confidently mitigating any risks, issues or control weaknesses that arise in your day-to-day

What we’re looking for

You have a strong corporate and/or commercial law background; secondment or in-house experience is preferred.
You have experience either in-house or advising clients in payments, credit cards, consumer/business lending or general finance, and understand the financial services regulatory framework.
You have strong experience drafting and negotiating complex commercial contracts, and you understand data privacy legislation and have experience of applying it in practice.
You have excellent communication skills that you want to develop further. You can advise senior stakeholders confidently and succinctly and you enjoy developing good working relationships.
You have a ‘can do’ attitude, comfortable working in a fast-paced environment. You prioritise commitments, manage a varied workload and meet deadlines. You are a team player, you contribute to team initiatives and your team-mates can depend on you.

Why join us?

At Funding Circle, we celebrate and support the differences that make you, you. We’re proud to be an equal-opportunity workplace and affirmative-action employer. We truly believe that diversity makes us better.

As a flexible-first employer we offer hybrid working at Funding Circle, and we've long believed in a 'best of both' approach to in-office collaboration and non-office days. We expect our teams to be in our London office three times a week, where you can take advantage of our newly refurbished hybrid working space, barista made coffee and subsidised lunches (via JustEat) every day!

We back our Circlers to build their own incredible career, making a difference to small businesses every day. Our Circler proposition is designed to support employees both in and out of work, and it is anchored around four pillars: Health, Wealth, Development & Lifestyle.

A few highlights:

Flexibility: We provide you with a benefit allowance so that you can tailor your benefit selection to you and your family’s needs.
Health:Private Medical Insurance, Dental Insurance, Health Cash Plan, Health Assessments (including female fertility health assessments), eyecare vouchers, flu jabs, Wellhub (for discounted flexible gym membership and access to wellbeing apps) access to a free Employee Assistance Programme and free Digital GP for yourself and any children under 16.
Wealth:Life Assurance, Income Protection, Critical Illness Cover, financial coaching through Octopus Money Coach, a tax-advantaged share scheme, a free mortgage advisor partnership and discounts across numerous retailers through Perks at Work.
Development: Dedicated annual Learning & Development allowance and full access to internal learning platform.
Lifestyle:Electric Car Scheme, Cycle to Work scheme, Season Ticket Loans, and more!

And finally, we have award winning parental leave policies supporting parents through enhanced maternity, partner and adoption leave, as well as additional leave for parental bereavement and for fertility treatments.

Ready to make a difference? We’d love to hear from you.