Senior Counsel, Global Acceptance & Merchant Solutions

Our Purpose

Mastercard powers economies and empowers people in 200+ countries and territories worldwide. Together with our customers, we’re helping build a sustainable economy where everyone can prosper. We support a wide range of digital payments choices, making transactions secure, simple, smart and accessible. Our technology and innovation, partnerships and networks combine to deliver a unique set of products and services that help people, businesses and governments realize their greatest potential.

Title and Summary

Senior Counsel, Global Acceptance & Merchant Solutions

Our Purpose
Mastercard powers economies and empowers people in 200+ countries and territories worldwide. Together with our customers, we are building a sustainable, inclusive digital economy where everyone can prosper. We enable a broad range of secure, simple, smart and accessible digital payment choices through our technology, innovation, partnerships and global network—delivering products and services that help people, businesses and governments realize their greatest potential.

About Global Acceptance & Merchant Solutions
The Global Acceptance & Merchant Solutions (GA&MS) business unit is Mastercard’s integrated organization focused on enabling secure, seamless and scalable payment experiences worldwide. Our solutions support merchants and partners across channels and geographies through modular, multi-rail services that reduce complexity, optimize payment performance and power commerce growth. This includes advanced connectivity, fraud and cyber capabilities, data and insights, loyalty-enabling services, and next-generation platforms—most notably Mastercard Gateway and Merchant Cloud.

Location
London, United Kingdom. As this role supports a globally distributed business, flexibility to collaborate across time zones and periodic international travel may be required.

Overview
We are seeking an experienced, commercially minded product and technology lawyer to join our legal team as Senior Counsel supporting the Global Acceptance & Merchant Solutions business. This role provides end-to-end legal support to a global portfolio, with a particular focus on Mastercard’s payments gateway and Merchant Cloud offerings. The successful candidate will act as a trusted legal partner to the business, advising on complex commercial, product, regulatory and risk matters in a fast-paced, highly regulated environment.
If you are intellectually curious, analytically strong and motivated by solving complex legal challenges at the intersection of technology, payments and regulation, this is an excellent opportunity to make a meaningful impact within a global organization.

Role and Responsibilities
This role covers a broad range of legal matters, including commercial contracting, product enablement and day-to-day legal support for the GA&MS business. You will help identify, assess and manage legal and regulatory risk, and support the implementation of scalable controls, policies and processes aligned with Mastercard standards. Key responsibilities include:
• Commercial Contracting: Drafting, reviewing, negotiating and advising on a wide range of commercial agreements with customers, partners, acquirers, processors, technology vendors and other third parties, with a strong emphasis on gateway and Merchant Cloud–related arrangements.
• Product and Platform Support: Providing comprehensive legal support across the product lifecycle—from ideation and design through development, launch and ongoing commercialization—particularly for payments gateway and Merchant Cloud solutions. This includes advising on product structure, go-to-market models and contractual frameworks that enable global scale.
• Regulatory and Risk Advisory: Identifying and advising on legal, regulatory, information security and incident management issues relevant to global payment acceptance and cloud-based merchant services, and partnering closely with compliance, regulatory, data protection, cybersecurity and other specialist teams.
• Stakeholder Partnership: Building strong, collaborative relationships with business, technology and operations leaders, and serving as a pragmatic, solutions-oriented legal advisor embedded within the GA&MS organization.
• External Counsel Management: Instructing and managing external counsel as appropriate, in line with Mastercard policies and budgets.
• Strategic and Ad Hoc Support: Supporting strategic initiatives, complex transactions and cross-functional projects, and providing general legal support to the business as required.

Please note that this description is intended as a guide. Roles at Mastercard evolve in line with business needs and organizational priorities.

All About You
The successful candidate will bring strong technical legal skills, commercial judgment and the ability to operate effectively in a global, matrixed environment. Specifically, you will have:
• Qualification as a lawyer with a strong academic background.
• Significant post-qualification experience, ideally with a combination of in-house and/or leading law firm experience. All Candidates with relevant expertise are encouraged to apply.
• Demonstrated experience advising on complex commercial and technology-driven arrangements, ideally within the payments, financial services, fintech or other regulated technology sectors.
• Proven ability to understand sophisticated products, services and platform-based business models, and to translate legal and regulatory requirements into practical, business-focused advice.
• Experience supporting product development and commercialization, including working with cross-functional teams to manage regulatory, data protection, intellectual property and information security considerations.
• Strong drafting, negotiation, communication and stakeholder management skills, with the confidence to influence at senior levels.
• A proactive, self-motivated and collaborative mindset, with strong organizational skills and attention to detail.
• Experience working in a regulated environment; familiarity with global payments regulation is highly desirable.
• Knowledge of European regulatory frameworks—such as the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), the NIS2 Directive and the Payment Services Directive (including PSD2/PSD3 developments)—is highly valued, particularly as they apply to payment gateways and payment service providers.
• Prior experience as an in-house lawyer within a multinational organization is desirable but not essential.

Equal Opportunity
Don’t meet every requirement? Every person is unique. If you are a qualified lawyer excited about this role and motivated to make an impact in a dynamic, global environment, we encourage you to apply. At Mastercard, we value diverse perspectives and are committed to fostering an inclusive culture where everyone can thrive.

Corporate Security Responsibility

All activities involving access to Mastercard assets, information, and networks comes with an inherent risk to the organization and, therefore, it is expected that every person working for, or on behalf of, Mastercard is responsible for information security and must:

• Abide by Mastercard’s security policies and practices;

• Ensure the confidentiality and integrity of the information being accessed;

• Report any suspected information security violation or breach, and

• Complete all periodic mandatory security trainings in accordance with Mastercard’s guidelines.