Regulatory Counsel, Americas

ABOUT AIRWALLEX Airwallex is the AI-native financial operating system for a real-time, intelligent economy. More than 675,000 businesses, including McLaren Racing, Qantas, SHEIN, and TikTok, use us, directly or through our platform partners, to run their financial operations or build and monetize financial products of their own. We started in Melbourne in 2015 to build the infrastructure global commerce runs on. We're the regulated backbone behind global payments: not by accident, but by design. A decade plus, 85+ licenses, and a financial infrastructure spanning North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific. We're co-headquartered in San Francisco and Singapore, with more than 2,700 people across 27 offices. We hire builders with founder-level energy, people who move fast with good judgment, dig in with real curiosity, and make calls from first principles rather than waiting to be told what to do. Read our operating principles https://www.airwallex.com/en-us/operating-principles to see it in full. ABOUT THE TEAM The Legal, Risk & Compliance (LRC) team at Airwallex is a collaborative group of legal minds and risk management experts. We're passionate about safeguarding Airwallex's operations, fostering a culture of compliance and ethical conduct, and ensuring we navigate the global financial landscape with integrity. We provide expert guidance and support to all areas of the business, proactively identifying, mitigating, and managing legal, compliance and financial risks. What you'll do You will be primarily responsible for supporting regulatory matters across the Americas region. This role will focus on advising on regulatory issues relating to payments and financial services, including licensing, money transmission and related requirements, and cross-border product offerings. You will support licensing, registration and ongoing compliance obligations in relevant Americas markets by helping to assess requirements, develop practical guidance, and partner closely with Regulatory Compliance and other control functions. As a Regulatory Counsel, you will provide practical legal advice to business and control-function stakeholders in the Americas. With support and mentorship from senior members of the team, you will own defined regulatory workstreams, contribute to licensing and product initiatives, and build deeper expertise in US payments regulation, money-transmitter licensing and the regulatory treatment of different payment flows. This role is well suited to someone who has strong regulatory fundamentals and wants to grow within a fast-moving fintech environment. You will work on meaningful matters across the US, with opportunities to support regulatory projects in Canada, Mexico and Brazil. The ideal candidate is curious, detail-oriented, collaborative and comfortable translating complex legal requirements into clear, actionable guidance. This hybrid role is based in San Francisco or New York. Responsibilities: - Support regulatory legal matters relating to Airwallex’s business across the Americas, including advice on existing licenses and registrations and potential future applications. - Research and summarize developments in payments and financial services regulation, identifying potential impacts on business operations and strategic objectives. - Partner with Product Legal, Regulatory Compliance, Risk and Financial Crime Compliance teams on regulatory questions involving money transmission, stored value, FX, remittance, card issuing and related financial-services products. - Support Product, Strategy, Management and Commercial teams on new market entry, license expansion and regulatory mapping for new products and features. - Analyze how funds move through different payment structures and help identify the applicable licensing and regulatory requirements, escalating complex issues when appropriate. - Provide clear, practical legal guidance and risk assessments to cross-functional stakeholders, with appropriate support from senior counsel and external advisers. - Support the management of external legal counsel and consultants, including preparing instructions, reviewing advice and tracking deliverables and costs. - Assist with regulatory filings, submissions and responses in relevant Americas jurisdictions in partnership with Regulatory Compliance and senior legal counsel. - Monitor regulatory developments and help translate changes into practical guidance, procedures and implementation requirements. - Leverage AI and other tooling to improve the scale, efficiency and effectiveness of the Regulatory Legal team. - Contribute to government-relations and policy work, including research and preparation for outreach to legislators and regulatory agencies. Who you are We're looking for people who meet the minimum requirements for this role. The preferred qualifications are great to have, but are not mandatory. Minimum qualifications: - Qualified lawyer with 5 years of relevant post-qualification experience. - Regulatory, financial-services or fintech experience gained in-house, in private practice or at a financial institution. - Exposure to payments, money transmission, e-money, FX, remittances, card issuing, digital financial services or another closely related regulatory area. - Working understanding of the US financial-services regulatory environment, with an interest in developing deeper expertise in state money-transmitter licensing and payment flows. - Ability to research complex legal and regulatory questions and translate findings into clear, practical advice. - Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to explain legal topics to non-lawyers. - Strong collaboration and stakeholder-management skills, including the judgment to escalate issues appropriately. - Proactive, organized and ownership-oriented, with the ability to manage multiple priorities and deadlines in a fast-paced environment. - Comfortable working through ambiguit