Experience

Josh is a partner who specialises in Financial Services Regulation and Fintech. Josh is top-ranked by IFLR1000 as a Market Leader and by Chambers Fintech Legal as Band 1.

Josh’s practice includes work relating to prudential and conduct regulation, authorisations, acquiring transactions, fitness and probity, compliance issues, transaction regulatory due diligence, regulatory investigations and remediation. He has deep experience advising clients in the areas of consumer and SME finance regulation, credit / hire purchase origination and servicing, electronic money, payment services, crowdfunding, MiFID, virtual / crypto assets, AML and market abuse.

Josh has a particular interest in how technology impacts upon the delivery of financial services. He engages extensively with the Fintech ecosystem in Ireland, including through industry/Government groups such as the Fintech Foresights Group and the Digital Assets Working Group. He is on the Governing Council of the Fintech & Payments Association of Ireland and co-chairs its Regulatory Insights Group.

Josh is an officer of the Banking Law Committee of the International Bar Association. He co-chaired the IBA International Financial Law Conference (Venice, May 2022) and regularly publishes / speaks on regulatory and fintech topics.

Josh has experience working on secondment from McCann FitzGerald in an international bank and in the Government Department of Finance.

Key highlights include advising:

  • AerCap on Irish financial services regulatory aspects of its US$30 billion acquisition of GE Capital Aviation Services to position AerCap the worldwide industry leader in aviation leasing.
  • Allied Irish Banks, p.l.c. on:
    • the purchase from Ulster Bank of a €4.2 billion corporate and commercial loan book and a €5.7 billion residential mortgage loan book; and
    • on its LIBOR transition project.
  • Bitpanda, a crypto / digital assets service provider, in relation to Irish regulatory matters.
  • Boku a payment institution, in relation to its authorisation by the Central Bank of Ireland.
  • Danske Bank on its conclusion of a Framework Agreement between the bank and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform for the provision of Government Banking Services, a major step in the modernisation of the Government’s payments infrastructure.
  • Deutsche Bank on financial services regulatory matters relating to loan portfolio acquisitions, loan origination and loan servicing.
  • Irish League of Credit Unions on a wide variety of matters relating to the regulation of credit unions.
  • Lloyds Banking Group on the Tracker Mortgage Examination mandated by the Central Bank of Ireland to review regulatory and contractual compliance with respect to all tracker mortgage accounts.
  • National Asset Management Agency on anti-money laundering, credit reporting and other financial services regulatory matters.
  • Pollen Street Capital on the sale of specialist business lender Capitalflow to Bunq, a fintech bank headquartered in the Netherlands.
  • Pollen Street Capital on the acquisition of a majority stake in the world’s largest mobile top-up service, Ding.
  • Visa on financial services regulatory matters relating to payment services.