About

Prague-headquartered Equa Bank – founded in 2011 – is serviced by a highly talented legal and compliance function led by Radka Viková, the head of the department and the Bank’s company secretary, who presides over a team that contains four legal professionals. Speaking to the most recent changes and innovations the team has seen, Viková explains how the recruitment of highly qualified professionals has played a part in the team’s recent strategy: ‘[We had a] solicitor with bar exams join the team resulting in [the ability to] cover the majority of proceedings in-house’, as well the division of work via a ‘clear split of the team counselling in retail or corporate client matters’. The team has been central to the oversight of several deals, transactions and major projects in the past two years, focusing on a number of different fields including the initiation of cooperation with the European Investment Fund on COSME guarantees, which saw the team help with financing a number of ‘interesting structured and real estate development deals’. The team also helped with the most pressing regulatory issues relevant to the Bank’s business, particularly GDPR, PSD2, mortgage and consumer lending legislation. Highlighted for particular praise was senior legal counsel Marie Melenová, who is said to have contributed ‘tremendously’ to the smooth, compliant and also business-oriented implementation of a mortgage directive and updated consumer lending regulation to bank processes. Viková also explains Melenová’s ‘dedicated involvement’ in an 18 month-long and bank-wide implementation project of GDPR, resulting in her appointment as data protection officer by the board of directors. As a team of dedicated professionals operating in a ‘tightening regulatory environment’, Viková explains how the team’s focus remains on supporting ‘customer friendly product innovations’ despite these becoming a ‘rare and pretty much welcome pleasure’.