Senior Counsel

Our Purpose Mastercard powers economies and empowers people in 200+ countries and territories worldwide. Together with our customers, we’re helping build a sustainable economy where everyone can prosper. We support a wide range of digital payments choices, making transactions secure, simple, smart and accessible. Our technology and innovation, partnerships and networks combine to deliver a unique set of products and services that help people, businesses and governments realize their greatest potential. Title And Summary Senior Counsel

Senior Counsel, Real Time Payments

Who is Mastercard?

Mastercard is a global technology company in the payments industry. Our mission is to connect and power an inclusive, digital economy that benefits everyone, everywhere by making transactions safe, simple, smart, and accessible.

The Real Time Payments business is responsible for designing, building and operating industry-leading bank account-based payment systems. Our technology powers payment solutions which underpin many economies, including the UK’s Faster Payments, Bacs and LINK ATM systems and the U.S., Thailand, Singapore, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Peru as well as Sweden, Norway and Denmark.

We cultivate a culture of inclusion for all employees that respects their individual strengths, views, and experiences. We believe that our differences enable us to be a better team – one that makes better decisions, drives innovation and delivers better results. With connections across more than 210 countries and territories, we are building a sustainable world that unlocks priceless possibilities for all.

Position

Senior Counsel, Real Time Payments.

Location

London or Harrogate, UK. As our team supports the business globally, the role may require the ability to support other time zones and some travel.

Overview We are looking for an experienced lawyer to join our legal team, providing support and advice to the Real Time Payments business with the predominant focus on supporting Vocalink Limited, although support may also extend to other parts of the RTP division as needed.

Vocalink Limited is supervised by the Bank of England as a Specified Service Provider and is within the remit of the Payment System Regulator (soon to be FCA) and provides systemically important services to two Recognised Payment System Operators. Vocalink Limited’s Board includes a number of independent directors to meet the expectations of the Bank of England who sit alongside directors from Mastercard who sit on the management committee of Mastercard Inc.

If you are highly motivated, intellectually curious, analytical and enjoy tackling a broad range of business and legal challenges and have a keen interest and passion for the world of payments, this is the perfect opportunity for you.

Role

Skills This role requires strong commercial skills and the ability to handle the full range of legal issues that a supervised entity within a global group face. This varies from a day-to-day basis and will include:

• Commercial: Putting in place and managing the full lifecycle of commercial relationships/contracts with customers, suppliers and partners which allow conversations to take place, ensures the business has what it needs from those relationships and supports the business to manage ongoing lifecycle of the contract (change, understanding, disputes).
• General: Identifying and, where appropriate, working with appropriate legal and business teams within the wider MA Group/external counsel to manage a wide range of other legal issues including privacy, regulatory, employment, litigation, property and corporate matters.
• Representing Legal: Ability to represent legal both on a day-to-day basis and as key contributor (as both the primary and deputy) at governance forums (e.g. Exco, Exco forums and committees, Board and its committees such as risk, audit, etc.).
• Collaboration with Internal Legal SMEs: Working effectively with other subject matter experts across the broader legal team (e.g. regulatory, privacy, intellectual property, etc) as necessary.
• Stakeholder Management and Collaboration: Building and maintaining strong relationships with internal stakeholders across the business, including commercial, account management, finance, strategy, operations, risk, compliance, Treasury and product teams.
• External Counsel Coordination: Instructing and managing external legal advisors within agreed policy and budget.

Please note that the above is a guideline only. Roles within Mastercard evolve with the needs of the business and team.

All About You

• Qualified Lawyer with a strong academic background. As a guide, we expect this role will be best suited to lawyers with 5+ years PQE but if you are outside that range and interested, we are happy to still consider your application.
• Ability to identify key legal issues, put these into the context of the business you support and articulate those issues clearly with potential solutions/options.
• Ability to quickly understand and maintain knowledge of complex products, services, and regulatory/legal frameworks.
• Ability to identify regulatory, competition law, data privacy and intellectual property issues and work with other teams to resolve them.
• Ability to apply experience to new situations/areas of law.
• Strong drafting, writing, oral communication, and negotiating skills.
• Strong experience in relationship building, stakeholder management and partnering.
• Can-do attitude, self-motivated and able to drive delivery against objectives.
• Excellent organisational skills and attention to detail.
• Prior experience with commercial contracting, technology and/or working in a regulated industry or the payments sector generally is critical.
• Prior experience of working in a regulated environment is considered a strong asset.
• Experience as an in-house lawyer in a multinational company is desirable but not essential.

Don’t meet every single requirement? Every person is unique. If you’re a qualified lawyer, excited about this role, looking to make an impact in a dynamic environment and you believe you can bring something special to our team, we’d love to hear from you.

Corporate Security Responsibility All activities involving access to Mastercard assets, information, and networks comes with an inherent risk to the organization and, therefore, it is expected that every person working for, or on behalf of, Mastercard is responsible for information security and must:

• Abide by Mastercard’s security policies and practices;
• Ensure the confidentiality and integrity of the information being accessed;
• Report any suspected information security violation or breach, and
• Complete all periodic mandatory security trainings in accordance with Mastercard’s guidelines.