Legal Counsel - Payment Services

Purpose

Our Payment Services business supports major financial institutions across Europe and beyond, with a contract portfolio spanning long-term supply agreements, digital services, and increasingly complex regulatory environments including DORA.

We are strengthening our legal capacity at a growth moment for the business. This role is designed for someone who wants real ownership early – not a position where you wait years to be trusted with a file.

You will be embedded with Sales and operational teams, expected to exercise real judgment on a high-volume portfolio of commercial agreements – running negotiations end-to-end, managing risk pragmatically, and contributing to how Legal operates as a function. You will not be supervised on every deal. You will be expected to make calls, propose solutions, and come to your manager with recommendations, not just questions.

Key Missions

Your primary responsibilities will be:

• Draft, review, and negotiate commercial agreements (supply contracts, MSAs, amendments, customer-specific frameworks
• Navigate complex clauses – pricing mechanisms, liability caps, regulatory annexes – with confidence
• Work directly with Sales, Account Management, Security, Pricing and other BU stakeholders on live deals
• Provide clear, actionable risk assessments – not theoretical analysis
• Push back on Sales and customers when the position requires it, while keeping deals moving
• Proactively identify issues and propose concrete solutions before being asked
• Help build and maintain standardization tools (clause libraries, negotiation playbooks, templates)
• Travel occasionally within Europe for key negotiations

Within 6 to 12 months, success in this role will look like:

• Sales teams treat you as an asset in negotiations
• You are handling your contracts portfolio with autonomy and sound judgment
• You have contributed meaningfully to contract standardization and improvement
• Key risks are identified and managed proactively – you raise solutions, not just flags
• You have established credibility with business leadership

Profile & Other Information

3–5 years of experience as a commercial/contract lawyer. In-house experience strongly preferred, ideally in a B2B technology, manufacturing, or financial services environment.

Fluency in both English and French is mandatory. 

Beyond the CV, the right candidate is:

• Autonomous – you don’t need hand-holding on standard deals, and you escalate with a recommendation, not a question
• Proactive – you are not a passive executor; you identify issues and propose solutions without being asked
• Assertive – you know when to push back without being obstructionist
• Commercial – you understand what a bad clause actually costs the business
• Structured under volume – you manage a high number of active files without losing consistency or control
• Credible – business stakeholders trust your judgment and bring you in early, not as a last resort

What this role offers:

• Direct reporting line to the Head of Legal for the Payment Services Business Unit – short hierarchy, real visibility
• Direct exposure to major customer negotiations and BU leadership
• Genuine ownership – you run the file, you own the outcome
• Active contribution to how Legal is built and operated, not just execution
• A business that takes Legal seriously as a function, not a checkbox
• Real complexity: cross-border contracts, regulatory pressure (e.g., DORA), volume and precision simultaneously