Helen Y. Lee

Helen is well-versed in advising on both transactional and regulatory matters. Her unique blend of large firm and in-house experience has well-positioned her to advise global financial institutions, fintechs, and other financial services companies on key regulatory issues throughout their regulated entity lifecycle (e.g., chartering/licensing issues, permissible activities analyses, anti-tying, examination issues, and enforcement matters), as well as negotiate and manage high volume financial institution contracts (on both bank-side and fintech-side). Most recently, she served as head of the Americas legal function for a multinational third-party payments platform, where she worked on complex cross-border commercial (transactional), regulatory, and government relations matters in the U.S., Canada, and Brazil.

Regulated financial institution clients work closely with Helen for their commercial contracting needs as well as on all aspects of their regulatory and compliance needs. She offers deep familiarity with the commercial and legal issues involved with her clients’ products and services, regularly advising on payments services, digital banking, and co-branded credit card programs. As a former in-house product counsel with a keen eye for identifying and managing risks, she is also a go-to resource for daily and operational concerns as well as key transactions.

Before her in-house experience, Helen was an associate/counsel at two global, AmLaw 100 firms, where she advised U.S. and international financial institutions on state and federal regulatory issues under banking statutes including the International Banking Act, Bank Holding Company Act, National Bank Act, Federal Deposit Insurance Act, Federal Reserve Act, and Dodd-Frank Act. Helen regularly assists clients with managing regulatory communications with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Federal Reserve Board and Federal Reserve Bank (FRB) staff, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI), and New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS).

• Significant transactional experience particularly arising from in-house roles as lead negotiator for payments-related contracts.
• Advised a global online payment platform’s compliance needs including regulatory reporting requirements; anti-money laundering, countering the financing of terrorism, and sanctions compliance obligations; risk management strategies; and data security and storage obligations.
• Advised financial services companies on legal and compliance government enforcement risks associated with financial technology commercial and consumer product offerings, including in areas of licensing and consumer laws, data privacy, data security, and other legal and regulatory considerations for mobile financial services and digital banking.
• Advised client stakeholder groups on execution of regulatory strategy and communications with regulators and policy makers.
• Advised on transactional matters arising from negotiations with bank and non-bank payments counterparties.
• Advised domestic and foreign financial institutions including national and state-chartered banks on regulatory and transactional matters arising under the U.S. federal and state banking laws on topics including core bank regulatory topics and internal investigations and regulatory enforcement.
• Represented clients in communications with regulators that included requests for formal or informal opinions, submission of comment letters regarding proposed rulemakings, negotiation of enforcement orders, and activity applications pending before federal and state regulators.
• Represented clients facing contentious receivership proceedings initiated by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.