Senior Regulatory Counsel, Americas

The role

You will advise on regulatory matters across the Americas to help navigate payments and financial services requirements. You will manage regulatory risk, support cross-border products, and lead complex regulatory workstreams and engagements with regulators.

What you will do

• Own regulatory legal matters across the Americas, advising on existing licences and registrations and potential future licence applications.
• Monitor, report on, and influence regulatory developments affecting payments and financial services.
• Partner with Product Legal, Regulatory Compliance, Risk, and Financial Crime Compliance on applicable requirements.
• Support Product, Strategy, Management, and regional Commercial teams with market entry and licensing advice.
• Provide pragmatic regulatory legal advice and risk assessments to global stakeholders.
• Lead complex regulatory workstreams and engagements with regulators in key jurisdictions.
• Manage external legal counsel and consultants in the Americas.
• Advise on ongoing regulatory obligations, reports, and filings in relevant Americas jurisdictions.
• Support government relations outreach to legislators and regulatory agencies.
• Use AI and other tools to improve the scale, efficiency, and effectiveness of the Regulatory Legal team.

Required qualifications

• Qualified lawyer with relevant post-qualification experience.
• At least eight years of relevant experience for Senior Regulatory Counsel level.
• Strong regulatory experience gained in fintech, reputable law firms, and/or financial institutions.
• Experience advising on regulatory matters, submissions, filings, and regulatory strategy in financial services or payments.
• Strong understanding of the financial services regulatory environment in the Americas, particularly payments, remittance, FX, issuing, and digital financial services.
• Strong stakeholder-management skills.
• Proactive, results-driven, and ownership-oriented.
• Ability to influence stakeholders and explain complex legal topics to non-lawyers.
• Collaborative and comfortable working through ambiguity in evolving environments.

Nice to have

• A mix of private-practice and in-house experience.
• Experience supporting expansion into new markets and launching regulatory licences in fintech, payments, or financial services.
• Experience advising on consumer and commercial regulatory matters, including state money transmitter licensing requirements and oversight by federal prudential regulators, with familiarity with regula
• 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.

About the company

Airwallex is the AI-native financial operating system for a real-time, intelligent economy. It provides financial infrastructure spanning North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific.