We advise clients engaged in every aspect of the payments ecosystem as they expand their e-commerce and technology-powered payments capabilities (PayTech), including:

• Payments expansion and optimization
• Payment acceptance, authorization, processing, issuing, and settlement services
• Platform/marketplace payment expansion
• Business-to-business, peer-to-peer, and in-app payments
• National Automated Clearing House Association (NACHA) and payment card rule compliance
• Cross-border payments
• Digital wallets
• Remittances
• Virtual currency, gift cards, rebate cards, and other stored-value programs
• Loyalty, membership cards, and “Points” programs
• Co-branded credit card agreements
• Bill-payment solutions
• Payment industry technology standards
• Anti-fraud and payment security standards and practices

We also support clients on a wide range of issues and matters relating to money transfer, transmission, and remittance, including cross-border, wire transfer, direct deposit, direct debit, stored-value transfers (private currency), and cardholder-initiated transactions. We help clients navigate the regulatory issues that affect their money transfer and remittance activities and assist them with any chartering and regulatory licensing issues from assessment to application, regulatory engagement, and license maintenance and support.

Perkins Coie was a first mover and global thought leader in the blockchain space and has been advising most of the founding actors since their initial market entries in 2012. We work with more than 300 blockchain clients, including digital asset exchanges, nonfungible token (NFT) marketplaces, asset custodians, and wallet providers, guiding them through the thickets of regulatory questions and challenges facing these exciting new classes of digital assets. We regularly address a range of concerns related to cryptocurrency and blockchain in the financial sector, including those surrounding custody/trust of digital assets, decentralized finance (DeFi), smart contracts, institutional cryptocurrency, stablecoins, money transmission licensure requirements, money-services business (MSB) registration requirements, and digital payments issues. We also support clients in all aspects of domestic and cross-border finance and commodity and derivatives trading compliance programs. 

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In the world of financial services compliance and anti-financial crimes, we provide guidance for and support the implementation of robust compliance infrastructure and programs, including risk assessments and design of anti-money laundering (AML) and U.S. sanctions compliance programs; financial privacy disclosures and compliance procedures; cybersecurity standard compliance; and defense of clients before the agencies regulating fintech companies, as well as state financial institution and banking regulators. Our support is built on an integrated and comprehensive suite of services that addresses:

• Regulatory Compliance and Risk Management. Provide continual advice regarding AML risk assessment; compliance and control infrastructure design; corporate governance and policy/procedure drafting; training and communication; ongoing compliance support for internal resources; vendor/technology assessment; secondment and staff augmentation for internal chief compliance officers.
• Regtech Support. Support our clients as they adopt technology to enhance regulatory compliance and reporting and to keep pace with ever-evolving regulatory changes and regulatory compliance requirements. Work with clients to examine and deploy regtech solutions and understand how this technology may affect their compliance controls; due diligence; and security management, identity management, risk management, transaction monitoring, and regulatory reporting obligations.

• Regulatory Enforcement and Civil Litigations. Represent fintech clients in relevant regulatory and civil litigation defense including U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) enforcement actions and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC )investigations; state securities board, financial services, and attorney general investigations; Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and anti-money laundering (AML) inquiries involving the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), the Office of the Comptroller of Currency (OCC), and the other federal regulators that oversee AML and OFAC compliance; and actions by state financial services regulators, including allegations of unlicensed money transmission or failure to adhere to money transmission license obligations.

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With extensive understanding of technology and financial services, we represent public and private companies and investors on investment and capitalization endeavors and implementation, help clients explore partnerships, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, carve-outs, spin-offs, recapitalizations, growth equity investments, and other transactions. Our fintech corporate attorneys are deeply involved in the blockchain venture space and have helped countless clients find and secure the requisite funding to successfully launch their ventures.

We advise clients on all aspects of emerging and technology-driven banking and consumer financial products and services, including marketplace lending, retail banking (e.g., neo-banks), Banking-as- a-Service (BaaS), and open banking services. We also assist clients who use data and technology to tailor specialized financial services to the needs of individual consumers, such as lending, checking, savings, and personal finance management. We believe that BaaS will continue to grow as these platforms provide an easy way for banks and non-banks to offer new financial products and services. This will create opportunities for fintech companies to enter new markets that have traditionally been dominated by retail banks, while providing ways for banks to increase their competitiveness in the digital economy. As BaaS relies on the seamless movement of customer data among providers, our technology-first fintech attorneys are well suited to support the success of these neo-banks and technology-driven offerings.