Legal Counsel - Payment & Product Partnerships EMEA

This is Adyen

Adyen provides payments, data, and financial products in a single solution for customers like Meta, Uber, H&M, and Microsoft - making us the financial technology platform of choice. At Adyen, everything we do is engineered for ambition. 

For our teams, we create an environment with opportunities for our people to succeed, backed by the culture and support to ensure they are enabled to truly own their careers. We are motivated individuals who tackle unique technical challenges at scale and solve them as a team. Together, we deliver innovative and ethical solutions that help businesses achieve their ambitions faster.

About the team and role

Adyen’s Payment & Product Partnerships Counsel team is newly chartered within the Regulatory organization to build and scale the legal framework for our most critical financial and technology infrastructure relationships. We are looking for a skilled, business-oriented financial services transactions lawyer to join our team in Amsterdam or London, focusing on partnerships in the EMEA region. In this role, you will be a principal advisor to our partnerships, product, risk, and compliance teams, responsible for a broad range of transactions and relationships that span financial services ecosystems, business operations and processes, and technology.

Adyen’s Regulatory and Legal teams build and operate at the intersection of global financial services law and regulation, commercial strategy, and product innovation. We’re looking for a lawyer who’s at home leading deals to support highly regulated, complex products, and who’s willing to roll up their sleeves and take on projects large and small. Experience with financial services transactions and a working understanding of market-dominant financial services regulatory models are a must; experience in payments, lending, and fintech are a plus, but not required.

What you’ll do

• Partner with Adyen’s payment and product partnerships teams to help build, manage, and grow strategic relationships with card networks, payment methods, financial institutions, and other financial and technology partners that support Adyen’s product and technical stack.
• Structure, draft, and negotiate strategic infrastructure partnership agreements to enable and optimize Adyen’s payments and financial products across our Europe and Middle East markets.
• Collaborate with product, regulatory, compliance, risk, finance, partnerships, and other cross-functional teams to ensure our partner deals conform to our regulatory positions and support our product development, market expansion, and commercial objectives.
• Counsel stakeholders across the business on operation and interpretation of partner agreements (including scheme, network, and operating rules), partner and regulatory ecosystem interdependencies, and corresponding risks and opportunities affecting Adyen’s product and go-to-market strategies.
• Scale our deal cycles and the products they support by generating and maintaining documents and other resources for working with partners, including form agreements, position guides, and implementation briefs.
• Stay current on laws, regulations, and scheme and network rules governing bank-partner relationships, third-party service providers and outsourcing, privacy, data security, consumer protection in financial services, and marketing.
• Build relationships as a trusted advisor by providing clear, practical, actionable guidance in areas involving significant ambiguity or rapid industry evolution.

What we’re looking for

• 8+ years experience as a qualified lawyer across in-house and law firm roles, with a significant portion spent working with financial institutions or technology companies on transactions opposite experienced counsel.
• Working dexterity with financial services partnership transactions, where a regulated financial institution and another party (e.g., a network, a fintech, another financial institution) collaborate to stand up and run a unified financial product or service, preferably a payment, credit, or lending product.
• A capable contract generalist who’s able to spot a broad range of legal issues across disciplines (e.g., contract, regulatory, IP, privacy); an avid drafter with a passion for simple, elegant language and an aversion to gratuitous legalese; and, a seasoned lead negotiator who is able to identify and communicate practical, risk-based solutions to deal points persuasively and on the fly.
• Excellent English-language communication skills, with the capacity to translate complex legal and contractual concepts to technical teams and other non-lawyer audiences.
• Constitutional curiosity and enthusiasm to self-educate quickly on complex business models, technologies, and product use cases.
• Strong, risk-tuned judgment, outstanding project management skills, and the ability to juggle competing priorities under tight deadlines.
• Proficiency in Spanish or Portuguese is a strong plus but not required.

Our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion commitments 

Our unique approach is a product of our diverse perspectives. This diversity of backgrounds and cultures is essential in helping us maintain our momentum. Our business and technical challenges are unique, and we need as many different voices as possible to join us in solving them - voices like yours. No matter who you are or where you’re from, we welcome you to be your true self at Adyen. 

Studies show that women and members of underrepresented communities apply for jobs only if they meet 100% of the qualifications. Does this sound like you? If so, Adyen encourages you to reconsider and apply. We look forward to your application!

What’s next?

Ensuring a smooth and enjoyable candidate experience is critical for us. We aim to get back to you regarding your application within 5 business days. Our interview process tends to take about 4 weeks to complete, but may fluctuate depending on the role. Learn more about our hiring process here. Don’t be afraid to let us know if you need more flexibility.

This role is based out of our Amsterdam or London office. We are an office-first company and value in-person collaboration; we do not offer remote-only roles.