FinTech: technology and law
Digital innovation in financial services is a must for banks and financial institutions. Customers expect seamless mobile and flexible solutions from their bank or payment service provider, while the latter also want to keep the IT, legal and compliance costs under control.
We take care of your legal and business challenges
With lawyers having outstanding experience as in-house counsels, managing consultants and occupying researching and academic positions, being continuously involved in the start-up and scale-up financial scene, our legal team of FinTech specialists can assist you regarding the legal and business challenges brought by financial innovation and delivers compliant, pragmatic, commercial and cost-effective solutions.
Our experience can help you
We have experience assisting local as well as foreign start-ups, scale-ups and incumbents with transforming their innovative ideas into reality solutions that are used by a multitude of people around the world on a daily basis. Our practice entails advising on compliance and regulatory matters relating to banking, payment and e-money services, credits, all sorts of data and tech concerns, virtual currency, blockchain and distributed ledger and cybersecurity.
Having excellent contacts with the Belgian regulators and stakeholders of the FinTech ecosystem, we are able to put you in contact with the industry players of your need.
"They are very responsive and also very pragmatic when tackling issues."
Chambers
''Timelex has a unique position in the Belgium market. The combination of financial regulatory, data protection and IT specialists creates a strong fintech profile.''
Legal 500
''The team is impressive when it comes to efficiency and a result-oriented approach. They also ensure extremely high value for money.''
Legal 500
Our services
- Legal and regulatory compliance when going from paper to digital, digitalisation of banking business model and business processes
- Cooperation between financial institutions / banks and FinTechs
- Electronic signature and digital archiving
- Internet distribution, online selling, social media, mobile banking
- Privacy and data protection (GDPR), Big Data, DPO as a Service, Outsourced DPO
- Contracts, outsourcing, service level agreement (SLA), cloud
- Outsourcing and advice implementation new software
- Contract negotiations with IT suppliers
- Consumer protection, legally compliant customer journey
- Blockchain, distributed ledger, NFT, digital assets
- Artificial intelligence, robot advice
- Legal issues in the payment ecosystem
- Payment services (PSD2)
- Mobile wallets
- Virtual currency, electronic money
- Dispute resolution, litigation, mediation, arbitration
- Cybercrime and cybersecurity
- Advising e.g. North American or Israeli (fintech) companies that target European market and customers
- Advising on app or e-commerce marketplace and the need of a payment license.
Our clients
Our team can support you with legal challenges in different situations. We are experienced in assisting companies involved in FinTech (start-ups, scale-ups as well as incumbents), such as:
- Banks, financial institutions
- Payment service providers
- Payment initiation service providers (PISP)
- Account information service providers (AISP)
- Electronic money institutions
- Technical payment service providers
- Software manufacturers
- Platforms
- eCommerce, webshops
FinTech Belgium
Timelex is very pleased to be a partner of FinTech Belgium, the Belgian leading FinTech association. FinTech Belgium is a federation of professionals interested in disruptive economic models and new technologies in the financial industry. Our team of FinTech specialists aims to actively contribute to the development of the FinTech sector in Belgium.
Our FinTech Team
Edwin Jacobs is a partner with significant experience in PSD2, GDPR, IT contracting and cybersecurity matters. Jacobs also maintains an extensive practice in dispute resolution. Having worked as a government lawyer, university lecturer and in-house counsel at a major FinTech company, Jacobs brings a depth of experience to the legal counsel he gives to clients. An impressed client notes: "He is proactive in warning us of possible future developments, helping to construct a road-map in response to legislative and regulatory changes. We appreciate him often going the extra mile." A peer regards him as a "hardcore FinTech lawyer."
Niels Vandezande specializes in FinTech and IT law at Timelex. He advises national and international clients on matters such as cryptocurrencies and blockchain, e-money and payment services, anti-money laundering, and investment products and services (including ICO / IDO / NFT / utility token etc).
With over a decade of experience in legal research and consultancy, Niels has gained broad experience in international and interdisciplinary projects managing the regulatory aspects of digitization, including matters of personal data protection (GDPR), electronic identification, and security.
From an academic perspective, Niels is still senior affiliated researcher at KU Leuven. In this capacity, he continues to frequently lecture and publish on his research.
Charlotte De Thaye has gained outstanding experience in digital finance, financial (regulatory) law and data protection law (GDPR and e-Privacy), the latter both in general as well as regarding its interaction with the provision of banking and/or financial services and innovative technologies.
In this context, she regularly assists in various license application files with the Belgian regulator and questions relating to the regulations on (consumer and SME) credit, payment and electronic money services (PSD and EMD) and anti-money laundering (AML/CFT). She was closely engaged in the entire set-up and launch – from beginning to end – of the first next generation challenger bank in Belgium, partly on the spot as a legal secondee.
She also focuses on IT law, such as e-commerce, software, e-signature and e-archiving services (eIDAS), and the drafting of various types of IT contracts.
References
- Advising a bank on the use of artificial intelligence and digital credit scorecards
- Advising a payment institution on aggregating direct carrier billing, a mobile payment method which allows users to make purchases by charging payments to their mobile phone carrier bill / mobile phone carrier credit.
- Advising a worldwide payment processing company in a due diligence in the crypto industry.
- Advising and negotiating a strategic outsourcing project for ATM’s.
- Assisting a pan-European asset management firm in negotiations with IT vendors for provision of hardware, software and services in the financial sector.
- Advising the Benelux market leader in recurring direct debit payments on payment services and on various IT contracts, GDPR compliance, PSD2 license.
- Drafting a new services contract and GDPR compliance for an open banking data brokerage service.
- Assisting several fintech start-ups with a payment services license (account information service provider/payment initiation service provider) and with GDPR compliance.
- Advising a tech company in the crypto sector on its terms and conditions, privacy policy and services contracts.
- Advising a European credit insurance group present throughout the European continent on the launch of a new service for online marketplaces.
- Advising a social selling platform on the application of the payment legislation.
- Advising an international bank on IT and consumer payment services related to cybercrime matters.
- Advising an international bank on intellectual property and data privacy, e-commerce, payment services and consumer protection law, a PSD2 license as Accounting Information Service Provider (AISP) and Payment Initiation Service Provider (PISP).
- Advising several tech companies on expansion plans for European Union
Contact a Timelex attorney
Are you seeking assistance? Timelex is and glad to support you when you contact us.
