Legal Counsel

• This is an excellent opportunity to join us as a Legal Counsel, where you’ll deliver the legal strategy and provide expert, accurate and cost-effective legal advice to our Enterprise Payments and Digital Assets Team, and our Everyday Banking teams across Retail and Private Banking & Wealth Management
• Your role will sit within our Retail & Private Banking Legal Team, but you’ll be providing payments and digital assets support enterprise-wide, so we’ll need you to have an understanding of associated legal issues
• You’ll be recognised as strategic thinker with a forward focus on regulation and innovation, and be exposed to stakeholders across the bank and externally
• Our team operates within a hybrid working model so you’ll work from home some of the time, coming into the office at least one day per week to collaborate closely with your colleagues

What you’ll do

We’re looking for an experienced Legal Counsel to manage and coordinate the delivery of legal advice, supporting our Retail Banking, Private Banking & Wealth Management and Payments CoE businesses. You’ll work closely with stakeholders and legal colleagues to ensure the timely, effective and efficient delivery of all issues, projects and initiatives, either directly or through a team.

Additionally, you’ll be:

• Making sure that legal advice is readily understandable to non-lawyers, delivered within relevant timescales, and manages and minimises legal risks
• Delivering continuous improvement in operating practices and processes, including identifying efficiencies, improvements and opportunities to reduce costs, including through the application of automation and AI
• Providing the communication of internal and external legal advice and helping to deliver transactions and projects to stakeholders in a commercial, user friendly and efficient manner
• Managing legal costs through the use of e-billing, auctions and other cost tools and driving a culture of disciplined cost management and controls

The skills you’ll need

To be successful in this role, you’ll need experience of providing legal and commercial advice in relation to transactions and projects in-house, or in a leading UK law firm. We’ll expect you to have in depth knowledge of general banking law and practice, and some working knowledge and curiosity about payments regulation and the emerging digital assets regulatory framework, coupled with the ability to establish and maintain strong relationships across the bank.

You’ll also need:

• Knowledge of retail and wealth banking services and payments/digital assets innovation, the commercial environment within which retail banks operate and associated legal issues
• Experience of working with leading law firms and other professional advisers and consultants
• The ability to keep up to date with and to use initiative to issue spot and share relevant legal and market developments to support our business in horizon scanning