Vice President, Legal – Personal Banking

Role Overview

• Provide strategic legal leadership for the Bank’s Personal Banking businesses, including mortgages, reverse mortgages, lending products, payments, deposits, wealth channels, sales, marketing, and distribution partnerships.
• Serve as the primary legal advisor to senior executives and business leaders on matters involving consumer protection, banking regulation, product design, marketing, distribution, and customer outcomes.
• Partner with business leaders in setting strategy and enabling execution through pragmatic, solution oriented legal advice that balances legal risk, regulatory expectations, and commercial objectives.
• Interpret and advise on complex legislative and regulatory requirements (e.g., Bank Act, consumer protection, OSFI guidelines, payments, privacy, CASL, AML/ATF), including material regulatory change, enforcement trends, and supervisory expectations.
• Provide executive level oversight of consumer facing communications, marketing materials, disclosures, and customer documentation to ensure compliance, fairness, and alignment with the Bank’s values.
• Own legal risk oversight for the Personal Banking portfolio, ensuring risks are proactively identified, escalated, mitigated, and reported in alignment with enterprise risk frameworks.
• Act as a senior point of escalation for high risk, novel, or ambiguous legal matters, including issues with potential reputational, regulatory, or strategic impact.
• Maintain strong working relationships with regulators, industry bodies, and external stakeholders, supporting effective regulatory engagement and issue resolution.
• Act as representative of the Bank on committees or organizations such as Canadian Bankers Association, Fintechs Canada, FDATA, Canadian Prepaid Providers Organization, and other government relations engagement.
• Advise the Executive Team on emerging legal, regulatory, and litigation risks that may impact business strategy, operating models, or long-term growth.
• Exercise delegated authority from the General Counsel for "go / no-go" decisions on products, initiatives, and partnerships within Personal Banking.
• Provide formal legal signoff on initiatives with material legal, regulatory, or conduct implications.
• Contribute to enterprise governance forums, crisis response, issue management, and regulatory remediation efforts as required.
• Lead, mentor, and develop senior legal professionals and teams supporting Personal Banking, fostering a high performing, commercially minded legal function.
• Set direction and expectations for legal support models, ensuring appropriate delegation, consistency of advice, and capability depth across the team.
• Provide executive legal oversight for corporate initiatives impacting Personal Banking, including new product launches, major transformations, strategic partnerships, and platform changes.
• Lead or oversee complex, high value contractual negotiations and strategic agreements with external partners, service providers, and intermediaries.
• Set strategy for the use of external counsel within the Personal Banking portfolio, including engagement decisions, budget oversight, and performance management.

Requirements

• University degree in law with 15+ years of practicing experience with a primary focus on corporate law, contracts, and agreements.
• University degree in business or commerce and/or 5 years of progressive management experience with substantial experience in financial services, banking, or another highly regulated consumer‑facing industry.
• Comprehensive understanding of, ethics, conflict, contract law, provincial/federal legislation, applicable foreign legislation, and complex business agreements.
• Familiarity with risk management, regulatory compliance and legal issues and business planning strategies.
• Advanced skills in interpreting, analyzing, and composing legal strategies.
• Thorough knowledge of legal and regulatory requirements applicable to the enterprise, including, among others, the Bank Act, the Trust and Loan Companies Act, the Competition Act, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, etc.
• Comprehensive knowledge of products, distribution channels and associated business processes.
• Strong business acumen and the ability to make decisions in times of uncertainty.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to precisely interpret complex compliance and legal concept and the ability to simplify the complicated messages.
• Working knowledge of Microsoft Office suite.
• Mediation and problem resolution.
• Project Management skills

Benefits

• Competitive discretionary bonus
• Market leading RRSP match program
• Medical, dental, vision, life, and disability benefits
• Employee Share Purchase Plan
• Maternity/Parental top-up while you care for your little one
• Generous vacation policy and personal days
• Virtual events to connect with your fellow colleagues
• Professional development and comprehensive Career Development program
• A fulfilling opportunity to join one of the top FinTechs and help create a new kind of banking experience