Senior Regulatory Counsel, Americas

About Airwallex

Airwallex is the AI-native financial operating system for a real-time, intelligent economy. More than 675,000 businesses, including McLaren Racing, Qantas, SHEIN, and TikTok, use us, directly or through our platform partners, to run their financial operations or build and monetize financial products of their own.

We started in Melbourne in 2015 to build the infrastructure global commerce runs on. We're the regulated backbone behind global payments: not by accident, but by design. A decade plus, 85+ licenses, and a financial infrastructure spanning North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific.

We're co-headquartered in San Francisco and Singapore, with more than 2,300 people across 27 offices. We hire builders with founder-level energy, people who move fast with good judgment, dig in with real curiosity, and make calls from first principles rather than waiting to be told what to do. Read our operating principles to see it in full.

About the team

The Legal, Risk & Compliance (LRC) team at Airwallex is a collaborative group of legal minds and risk management experts. We're passionate about safeguarding Airwallex's operations, fostering a culture of compliance and ethical conduct, and ensuring we navigate the global financial landscape with integrity. We provide expert guidance and support to all areas of the business, proactively identifying, mitigating, and managing legal, compliance and financial risks.

What you'll do

You will be primarily responsible for regulatory matters across the Americas region. This role will have a strong focus on advising on complex regulatory issues relating to payments and financial services, including licensing, money transmission and related requirements, and supporting cross-border product offerings. You will be responsible for supporting our licensing, registration and ongoing compliance obligations in relevant Americas markets by helping to design and implement appropriate measures and controls, and by partnering closely with Regulatory Compliance and other control functions.

As a Senior Regulatory Counsel, you will serve as a senior advisor to the business and control functions in the Americas, owning complex regulatory workstreams, leading engagements with regulators in key jurisdictions, and contributing to the development of regional regulatory strategy.

You will be a valuable member of the global legal and compliance team and will have the opportunity to support a rapidly growing business and the management team to navigate an increasingly complex regulatory landscape. This dynamic role is ideal for someone who enjoys wearing multiple hats and solving complex issues and blockers for our clients, is detail-oriented, willing to take on challenges and changes, obsessively curious and intellectually honest, thrives on taking actions and delivering impactful results, and aims to inspire and be inspired.

This role is based in San Francisco or New York.

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.

Who you are

We're looking for people who meet the minimum requirements for this role. The preferred qualifications are great to have, but are not mandatory.

Minimum qualifications:

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.

Ability 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.

Preferred 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.

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