ByteDance

Responsibilities

The Team

PIPO is ByteDance’s Global Payments Business, playing a crucial role in the monetization of ByteDance products while operating in a highly regulated financial services environment. Given the complexity of the regulatory landscape, we require experienced legal professionals with deep expertise in payments, financial services regulation, and compliance.

The Role

We are seeking an experienced Payments/Financial Services Legal Counsel to provide strategic legal advice and ensure regulatory compliance across PIPO’s payments and financial services operations in the European Economic Area (EEA), especially Luxembourg, United Kingdom and Middle East.

This role is pivotal in advising on complex matters, structuring compliant business models, and supporting the development of innovative payment and financial services solutions while ensuring adherence to AML, KYC, GDPR, and other key regulatory frameworks.

Advisory:

• Provide expert legal counsel on financial services regulations (i.e. PSD2, EMD2, AMLD, GDPR, and consumer protection laws) across the EEA, especially Luxembourg, UK and Middle East.
• Partner with XFN, especially Payments Regulatory Legal and Payments Compliance teams to support and manage licensing, regulatory filings, and engagements with financial regulators (e.g., CSSF, EBA, ECB).
• Advise on safeguarding client funds, capital adequacy, and outsourcing requirements for payment and e-money institutions.
• Assess the impact of regulatory changes and help the business adapt to evolving financial services laws.

Financial Services Product Support:

• Partner with product, engineering, compliance, risk, and operations teams to develop and launch compliant payment and financial services products and services.
• Partner with XFN teams to ensure financial services solutions comply with requirements for strong customer authentication (SCA), cross-border transactions, and open banking.
• Advise on legal risks and opportunities in Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL), lending, merchant financing, and embedded finance.

Commercial & Transactional Legal Support:

• Structure, draft, and negotiate complex agreements with financial institutions, payment service providers, and technology partners.
• Support agreements related to banking partnerships, payment processing, merchant acquiring, and outsourcing.
• Provide legal expertise on strategic initiatives, such as new market expansion and partnerships.

Risk & Governance:

• Support risk assessments and governance processes to ensure operational and regulatory compliance.
• Help build scalable legal processes for launching new financial services offerings.
• Collaborate with global legal, compliance, and risk teams to align regional and global strategies.
• Partner with XFN teams to develop and deliver training programs for the Board of Directors (BoD) and senior management on key regulatory topics, including PSD2 and regulatory obligations under CSSF oversight.
• Ensure internal policies, procedures, and controls are in line with legal and regulatory expectations.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications

• Qualified lawyer (admitted to practice in an EEA jurisdiction, preferably Luxembourg, or UK).
• Strong understanding of the financial services sector, including knowledge of compliance requirements such as consumer protection, anti-money laundering rules, know-your-customer requirements, etc.
• Strong knowledge of PSD2, EMD2, AMLD, GDPR, and relevant consumer protection laws.
• Experience working with or within a regulated financial institution, fintech, PSP, or law firm specialising in financial services.
• Expertise in structuring payments and financial services, e-money solutions, and compliance frameworks.
• Experience engaging with financial regulators, particularly CSSF, EBA, or ECB.
• Strong contract negotiation skills with a focus on payments, financial services, technology, and commercial agreements.

Preferred Qualifications

• Ability to navigate complex regulatory environments and provide practical, business-oriented legal solutions.
• Exceptional stakeholder management, communication skills, with the ability to collaborate across legal, compliance, product, and risk functions.
• A self-starter with a proactive approach, strong problem-solving skills, and the ability to thrive in a fast-paced environment.