Lead Legal Counsel - Regulatory and Financial Services

Are you looking to have an impact on the daily life of millions of entrepreneurs in France (and tomorrow in Europe)?

Are you looking for a work environment that values trust, proactivity, and autonomy?

Then Pennylane is the right place for you !

Our vision

We aim to become the most beloved financial Operating System of French SMEs and Accounting Firms (and soon, European ones).

We help entrepreneurs rid themselves of time-consuming tasks related to accounting and finance while providing them with access to key financial information to assist in making the best decisions for their business.

About us

Pennylane is one of the fastest growing Fintechs in France (and soon to be in Europe!)

In 5 years of existence, we’ve managed to :

💻 Make ourselves known as a groundbreaking accounting and financial software for small businesses and their accountants

💰 Raise a total of €400 millions, including from Sequoia, the famous fund from the Silicon Valley who invested early in companies like Google, Facebook, Airbnb, Stripe, Paypal and much more...

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Grow from 7 cofounders to 1000 happy Pennylaners : we’re now recognized as one of the greatest places to work in France (and also remotely), with a 4.6/5 rating on Glassdoor.

🌍 Build an international environment with more than 25 nationalities, with a strong remote-friendly culture, where 30% of the employees are already working from all parts of Europe

🤝 Earn the trust of thousands of customers and accounting firms and obtain outstanding ratings

🚀 Already more than 900,000 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and over 6000 accounting firms use Pennylane in France!

We are currently operating approximately 30k business accounts under a BaaS model with Swan.

The role of Financial Services in our strategy is set to grow, both in terms of revenue and product contribution, to serve our 800k current customer base.

As such, we are initiating a process to get licensed as Etablissement de paiement et Société de financement. Our ambition is to start onboarding new customers by mid 2027 before starting migrating existing customers.

To meet this ambition, we are starting to hire our Tech, Product, Compliance, Legal and Ops leaders.

We are looking for a Lead Legal Counsel to drive the legal function of our Financial Services activity and build our regulatory legal team.

From the day you join until we are fully licensed, you will structure and execute the legal path to authorization: interpret requirements, translate them into an internal plan, and ensure deliverables are complete, consistent, and aligned across teams. You will help define the target operating model (intra-group and outsourced) and ensure it is legally defensible and well documented for the application.

After licensing, you will shift from “building the file” to running and scaling the legal function of the regulated entity: ensuring ongoing compliance with ACPR expectations, enabling product growth safely, and keeping the operating model (including outsourcing) continuously audit-ready. You will own the legal oversight of day-to-day legal and corporate matters (policies, governance, reporting support, inspections), lead the legal work for launching new regulated products and entering new partnerships, and manage the legal aspects of onboarding and migrating customers to the licensed subsidiary (terms, communications, complaints/conduct risk).

This is a greenfield project with high autonomy and responsibility, and the opportunity to shape the legal culture of a fast-growing fintech while managing and mentoring an experienced Legal Counsel, with the ambition to scale the team further as the business grows.

Organisation & Reporting

You will be part of the core Legal Department. Your reporting line will be Stanislas, our General Counsel.

You will manage a seasoned Legal Counsel and will be responsible for planning the future growth of the Financial Services Legal team. You will also partner closely with our Financial Services Chief Compliance and Risk Officer, Chief Operational Officer and the contract team.

Mission & Objectives

Team Leadership & Structuring

• You manage, mentor, and develop your team member(s), fostering a high-performance, autonomous, and pragmatic legal culture.

• You structure the team’s workload and roadmap, delegating effectively while remaining deeply hands-on.

• You anticipate future hiring needs and actively participate in scaling the regulatory legal team.

Corporate and governance You design, document and run the legal aspects of corporate governance: delegation of powers, board/committee charters, conflicts management, inter-company arrangements on payment services outsourcing, governance narrative for the ACPR reports, and ongoing legal compliance cadence once authorized.

Products, contracts and customer legal architecture

• You own the legal design of the FS product perimeter (payments services, account services, credit/financing products as applicable).

• You work with the contractual team (Roland) on the associated contractual framework: customer terms, disclosures, pricing documentation, complaint handling language, and operational/legal flows (including KYC/AML handoffs, incident handling and customer communications).

Outsourcing / BaaS transition & vendor contracting You own legal matters relating to critical outsourcing and third-party reliance (including existing BaaS arrangements): contract negotiation, regulatory outsourcing clauses, audit/access rights, sub-outsourcing controls, exit plans, SLAs, data protection allocation, operational resilience expectations, and documentation suitable for ACPR scrutiny.

Migration readiness In close collaboration with the operation team (Maxime), you lead the legal plan for migrating customers from Swan (sequencing, consent/novation approaches, customer communications from a legal standpoint, continuity of mandates, handling of incidents/complaints, and safeguards to minimise conduct risk).

Privacy and Security In close coordination with our DPO (Léa) and security stakeholders, you ensure that our Financial Services operating model address data processing roles, cross-border flows (if any), retention, incident response, recordkeeping, and contractual protections with key providers.

Regulatory engagement support & internal enablement

• Until we are fully licenced, you help prepare ACPR interactions (Q&A packs, position papers, meeting preparation).

• Once authorized, you own the relationship with ACPR from a legal perspective, supporting the CCRO with legal opinions, advisory etc.

• You train internal stakeholders on the legal/regulatory constraints that shape product and operations, and build a “legal-by-design” approach for Financial Services.

Culture, Training & Advisory You will be expected to operate as an owner, not a “support function,” and to produce pragmatic, regulator-ready outcomes.

About you

• You have 8+ years of relevant experience, including in-house legal experience at a regulated entity (payments, EMI/PI, bank, lending/consumer credit, factoring, etc.), fintech, or BaaS.

• You have a proven track record or a strong aptitude for managing, mentoring, and developing team members in a fast-paced environment.

• You have substantial experience in regulated financial services legal work, and you are comfortable owning cross-functional programmes.

• Senior legal expert in a French ACPR-regulated entity (établissement de paiement, établissement de crédit, société de financement or similar).

• Hands on contract experience and knowledge about our regulatory environment (arrêté du 3 novembre 2014, PSD2, DORA, EBA Guidelines, etc).

Skills & mindset

Technical strengths You can credibly lead on :

• ACPR/European regulatory frameworks for payments and/or lending/financing;

• Outsourcing and third-party risk legal frameworks in regulated environments;

• Governance and regulated-entity corporate law basics.

Soft skills

• Player-coach mentality: capable of executing complex individual contributions while guiding and empowering your team.

• You can work fast without losing rigour.

• Strong pedagogy: able to explain complex regulatory legal topics to product managers, engineers and founders in simple, actionable terms.

• Pragmatic, impact-driven approach, capable of operating under strong regulatory constraints without blocking innovation.

• Very strong written and oral communication skills in both French and English.

Languages, presence and location

• Fluent French and English are mandatory.

• Based in France, with a strong preference for Paris.

• Regular on-site presence in Paris is expected. Partial remote is possible. This is not a fully remote role.

Recruitment Process

1. Interview with Lucie (30-45 min), Senior Recruiter

2. Interview with Stanislas (1h), Head of Legal, Risk & Compliance

3. Case Study with Stanislas & Maxime (1h)

4. Last round with Laurent and Felix (45 min)

What do we do to make your work life easier

🌴 Wherever you are based, you will get 25 vacations days paid by Pennylane

💵 You’ll have a competitive compensation package

📈 You'll get company shares to enjoy a piece of the success story you're building with us

🏡 You’ll have a budget to turn your home into a more comfortable workspace, as well as a monthly allowance to work from a coworking space whenever you feel like it

⛹️ Through our partner Gymlib, you’ll have access to 8000 fitness spaces in Europe and more than 300 activities related to wellness

🇬🇧 You’ll have access to Busuu to perfect your English or your French

💻 You’ll get the latest Apple equipment

🏢 Depending on the teams and the requirements of the position - you'll be able to work remotely from your country of residence, as long as it is in Europe and within a maximum time difference of two hours from the CET time zone

🎉 We are committed to regularly coming together for company events such as Tech Days (which bring remote Pennylaners together every 3 months) or our annual company seminar, fostering significant moments of cohesion for everyone.

If you are based in France, you will have a French contract following French regulation on top of the additional perks : 6 to 12 RTT, 5 weeks PTOs, lunch credits (Swile), Alan Blue healthcare cover and regular events in cities where Pennylaners are mostly presents (Lyon, Bordeaux, Nantes…)

We're working on providing those last advantages to our people based outside of France as well, but it can be quite more complex depending on different countries.

Who are we looking for ?

To thrive at Pennylane, you need :

-To speak English (level is assessed and appreciated according to the department you’re applying to)

-To be energized by an ever-shifting work environment

-To be highly collaborative (within your team or other stakeholders)

-Sufficiently experienced to prioritize business-led actions on your day to day activity

We know that some people are less likely to apply than others, if they don’t feel like they meet the full list of criteria.

If you’re hesitating, we encourage you to apply : who knows, it might be the start of a meaningful and long-lasting collaboration.

Important information for candidates

Recruitment scam attempts are on the rise. We invite you to remain vigilant during your exchanges.

Applications through official channels only : apply exclusively through our job postings published on our official platforms (career site, official partner pages).

Always verify the sender's email address: our communications are sent from professional email addresses with the domains @pennylane.com or @pennylane-partners.com

We will never ask you for payment or financial information

(bank details, payment for an interview, equipment purchases, etc.) as part of the recruitment process. If such a request is made to you, it is fraudulent. We invite you to not respond and to report it to us immediately.

🇫🇷 Données personnelles

Pennylane traite vos données pour gérer votre candidature et évaluer votre adéquation au poste. Si votre candidature n’aboutit pas, vos données peuvent être conservées 2 ans à compter de notre dernier échange ou de la clôture du recrutement afin de constituer & gérer un vivier de candidats. Vous pouvez vous opposer à tout moment et demander la suppression de vos données en écrivant à : [email protected].
Notre data policy

🇬🇧 Personal Data

Pennylane processes your data to manage your application and assess your suitability for the position. If your application is unsuccessful, your data may be retained for 2 years from our last exchange or the closing of the recruitment process, in order to build and manage a candidate pool. You may object at any time and request the deletion of your data by writing to [email protected]. Learn more

🇩🇪 Personenbezogene Daten

Pennylane verarbeitet Ihre Daten, um Ihre Bewerbung zu bearbeiten und Ihre Eignung für die Stelle zu beurteilen. Sollte Ihre Bewerbung nicht erfolgreich sein, können Ihre Daten bis zu 2 Jahre ab unserem letzten Austausch oder dem Abschluss des Rekrutierungsverfahrens gespeichert werden, um einen Kandidatenpool aufzubauen und zu verwalten. Sie können jederzeit Widerspruch einlegen und die Löschung Ihrer Daten beantragen, indem Sie an [email protected] schreiben. Mehr erfahren

🇪🇸 Datos personales

Pennylane trata sus datos para gestionar su candidatura y evaluar su idoneidad para el puesto. En caso de que su candidatura no sea seleccionada, sus datos podrán conservarse hasta 2 años a partir de nuestro último contacto o de la finalización del proceso de selección, con el fin de constituir y gestionar una reserva de candidatos. Puede oponerse en cualquier momento y solicitar la eliminación de sus datos escribiendo a [email protected]. Más información