About

Team size: 7
Major law firms used: Allen & Overy, JAG Shaw Baker, Paul Hastings

At payment firm TransferWise, GC Jenifer Swallow says everyone ages in dog years: ‘There’s just always so much going on!’

Swallow was the first in-house lawyer at TransferWise when she joined in 2015 and it has since grown to four fully-qualified lawyers. Including non-legal professionals, the team now numbers seven.

Last year Swallow and her team were kept busy as TransferWise launched a variety of products and initiatives. Chiefly, the company introduced a debit card to its business customers, which gives them the cross-border benefits of the usual TransferWise transactions: namely, the ‘real’ and up-front exchange rate before engaging in international payments. And, in a fintech crossover comic book fans would be proud of, TransferWise entered into a partnership with mobile banking app Monzo. The agreement will allow Monzo Bank customers to also benefit from these cross-border discounts.

Swallow comments: ‘Why would you build cross-border functionality when we already have it and at a lower price point?’

However, the introduction of EU regulation, namely the second Payment Services Directive, is putting pressure on mainstream banks to provide greater transparency in foreign currency transactions. Barclays has already started flagging up its exchange rate. This means competition. But Swallow is unfazed.

‘That was my first question when being interviewed for this role. “What are you going to do when the banks are forced to comply?” The response has stayed with me since: “The mission is to make money move quickly and transparently for customers. If we get that done, we will have achieved our ambition.”’