Team size: Ten

What are the most significant cases or transactions you have been involved in recently?

I have been working in the legal department of this company for about 17 years. I started in a junior role with a more generalist approach to my work, while working with a small team of lawyers. Our scope was everything legal, and we worked on a variety of projects such as working with retail customers, treasury, capital markets and more. We are now the biggest bank in Spain and so a large legal department is required to serve all its legal needs. Aside the bank changing, our customers are also changing and the banking sector too.

There is a focus now on digitalisation, globalisation and situation crisis. It is imperative now to have a specialised team at headquarters level. Before, I was managing 30 lawyers on a domestic level, but now international business of the bank is growing and so our team is equipped to extend our expertise throughout our branches in UK, Europe, and Morocco.

So, I am once again a generalist, answering all kinds of legal questions and responsible for all international branches of the bank. Our team is a multidisciplinary team, with different cultures, languages, and regulations. My task now is to empower the team I work with, in our specific environment and further their soft, technical and professional skills.

In what ways do you feel like the in-house legal role will evolve in Spain over the next few years?

It’s time that the work of an in-house lawyer is not only confined to providing objective legal advice but is also a member of the team that knows the business, its goals and mission perfectly well. The lawyer must be targeting the same common goal as the rest of their colleagues and devoting their time and expertise to give solution-oriented perspectives.

In the changing financial landscape, has your company been impacted by new phenomena like FinTech and blockchain? And how was your legal team assisting the company to stay competitive against things like it?

There’s a place for everybody in the market, so it is normal that clever people are engaged in financial technology as a response to customers needs and wishes. This is an opportunity for banks to learn what other players are doing, because they are an information source too. Innovation can also be said to be copying good ideas, so it is good to look for ways to establish collaboration. We are working in our department on transformation and digitalisation, to keep up with the evolution. We are also collecting data, so that we can make informed decisions and offer solid advice in the context of these times. We are very active and willing to accompany our clients on this journey of new products and scenarios.