Fintech, Market Infrastructure and Payments

Our award-winning Fintech, Market Infrastructure & Payments Group acts as strategic advisor on market-leading, innovative and paradigm-shifting projects.

We are the ‘go-to’ legal advisor for financial market infrastructures (FMIs), as well as payments and fintech businesses. We provide strategic advice in relation to wholesale and retail payments, securities settlement, and the development of innovative and cutting-edge products and systems using cloud technologies, distributed ledger technology (DLT) and digital assets.

Our cross-disciplinary team provides a one-stop shop for all of our clients’ requirements extending across financial services regulatory, competition, IP, technology, data protection, privacy law, banking and insolvency, and contentious/disputes matters.

The strong relationships we have with clients, alongside our active involvement with leading FMI, financial markets and fintech-related trade associations, means we help to shape the direction of legal and regulatory developments in wholesale and retail payments, securities settlement, fintech, crypto and digital assets, rather than merely advising on them. By doing so, we can add extraordinary value.

Assisting Her Majesty’s Government, policymakers, regulators, central banks and legislators to develop laws and regulations comes as second nature to us. Providing unique knowledge of the complex workings of those institutions that sit at the heart of, and which are the lifeblood of, the financial markets, forms the basis of our FMIP Group's advice. This experience is also invaluable when servicing other clients – including those who participate in the systems operated by FMIs or who are building innovative products and solutions built on new technologies in an evolving legal and regulatory landscape (like DLT, crypto and other digital assets).

Awards and recognition

Our FMIP Group is well recognised by the market for its work and has won numerous awards. The team's recent awards and recognition include:

Moving the Market Forward Award 2021: Financial Times Innovative Lawyer Awards Europe
12th Most Innovative Law Firm in Europe 2021: Financial Times Innovative Lawyer Awards Europe
Band 1 in Financial Services Non-Contentious Regulatory by Chambers & Partners

Advising Euroclear UK & International on the successful launch of a new post-Brexit market solution for euro settlement.
Advising RTGS.global Limited on the implementation of a ground-breaking, next-generation interbank payments system to allow instant cross-border payments.
Advising Pay.UK on the development of a new "next generation" overlay service – Request to Pay.
Advising Bittrex Global on legal and regulatory considerations impacting upon its global cryptocurrency exchange business.
Advising CLS on its new service for the settlement of FX derivative contracts to be cleared by central counterparties.
Advising CHAPS Co on the development and implementation of its contractual and governance framework prior to the migration of the CHAPS System to the Bank of England.
Advising Monzo, the leading digital bank, on a business-critical near-shore outsourcing arrangement.
Advising Small World FS on the interpretation and application of new rules on cross-border payments.

Acting as lead project counsel for Pay.UK on the design and implementation of the New Payments Architecture.
Advising Fnality International on specialist regulatory aspects of the development of its innovative, blockchain-based payment system.
Acting as project counsel for Cheque & Credit Clearing Company Limited on the development and implementation of its Image Clearing System.
Advising Faster Payments on ground-breaking contractual solutions for the admission of non-bank payment service providers to participation in FPS using special purpose funds provided by their clients.
Acting for a group of FMIs in helping HM Treasury develop its policy on and drafting of onshoring statutory instruments in response to a potential Hard Brexit, with specific reference to settlement finality and wider financial market issues.
Assisting HKEX on proposals for the dematerialisation of the Hong Kong securities market.
Advising Paymentsense in relation to its contracts with EPOS software providers and resellers and in relation to complex data protection issues.
Advising payment and e-money institutions on the interpretation and application of the PSRs and EMRs.