Senior Legal Counsel, Booking Holdings FinTech

Booking Holdings is seeking a business-minded FinTech Product Legal Counsel to join our international Fintech legal team. This role is critical in supporting the design, development, launch, and scaling of innovative financial technology products across multiple jurisdictions and Booking Holdings Brands. 

This role will partner closely with Product, Engineering, Compliance, Risk, Partnerships, Privacy, and Commercial teams to enable innovative financial products and payment solutions while managing legal and regulatory risk.

The ideal candidate combines strong product counseling capabilities with experience in payments, embedded finance, digital wallets, fintech partnerships, and regulated financial services environments.

This opportunity represents an exceptional chance to embed yourself within one of the world’s most exciting groups, work with top class Brands and help define the future for accessing travel experiences across the world. 

This is an excellent opportunity for a lawyer who thrives in fast-paced, technology-driven environments and enjoys working cross-functionally to bring customer-centric financial products to market globally.

Key Responsibilities

• Advisory: Provide high quality and commercial legal advice to enable the compliant delivery of the FinTech/Payments product strategy, supporting stakeholders through the end-to-end product journey from the design “drawing board” to launch and beyond.

• Product Enablement: Serve as a legal partner for Fintech and payments product teams, advising on the design, structure, implementation, operation and lifecycle management of all FinTech/payment product initiatives globally.

• Regulatory Leadership: Lead and coordinate multi-jurisdictional regulatory assessments for Fintech products and payments flows. This includes identifying and interpreting applicable global regulatory requirements, such as licensing, privacy, payments regulation, consumer protection, and AML/CTF. You will scope and instruct external counsel, and translate complex advice into clear, actionable guidance.

• Risk and Compliance: Work closely with our regulated entities and internal risk stakeholders to ensure products are designed and operated within licence and regulatory perimeter.

• Cross-Functional Partnership: Collaborate effectively in a matrix structure with Legal, Product, Engineering, Finance, and Commercial teams. 

• Guidance and Governance: Support governance and documentation, including product legal reviews and risk assessments. Help develop and maintain playbooks, templates, and guidance for recurring payments topics to drive consistency and speed of execution.

Knowledge and Skills

• Qualified lawyer with 5–8 years’ PQE (or equivalent experience) with a mix of in-house and big firm experience preferred. 

• Law degree from a top law school, and excellent academic credentials.

• Experience advising on Fintech products within fast-paced technology companies.

• Proven track record working in complex, multi-jurisdictional environments. 

• Good understanding of key legal and regulatory frameworks including international money transfer, foreign exchange, outsourcing, open banking, e-money, payment services, e-commerce and online platforms for the EU (e.g. PSD2, AMLD, CBPR2, MTRs, DORA, SCA), US or another key jurisdiction or other rapidly evolving and developing regulatory (e.g. GenAI) contexts are beneficial.

• Excellent drafting, negotiation, and communication skills.

• Proven ability to work independently and manage multiple stakeholders in a fast-paced environment.

Preferred

• Experience supporting payments and financial services for a global online marketplace or travel/e-commerce platform.

• Understanding of the operational and regulatory complexities of cross-border travel transactions.

• Excellent communication skills, capable of translating complex legal concepts into concise, actionable insights for non-lawyers.

• Experienced in exercising sound commercial judgment to propose pragmatic legal solutions that balance risk, speed, and strategic goals.

• Comfortable making recommendations in ambiguous, fast-evolving regulatory and business environments.

• Flexible in adjusting approaches as new regulatory, market, or operational realities emerge. Comfortable collaborating across multiple time zones, cultural contexts, and regulatory environments.

• A passion for fintech and payments. Eager to learn new technologies and ideas. Comfortable navigating complicated and nuanced issues.

• Native or fluent English speaking and writing skills

• Regular travel to Amsterdam is required.