Bio

Juan Azel counsels and assists financial institutions and FinTech companies on the development, implementation, and execution of sound, comprehensive risk management frameworks—including tailored consumer and financial crime compliance management systems (CMS)—that identify, manage and effectively mitigate the risks associated with the development, offering, and delivery of cutting-edge FinTech products and services, such as marketplace lending (MPL) and buy-now-pay-later (BNPL), banking-as-a-service (BaaS), cards, payments, and digital assets, whether conducted directly or through third-party relationships. Juan focuses his practice in FinTech, banking and consumer, and financial crime regulatory compliance. He has 25 years of both in-house and external counsel experience assisting domestic and foreign financial institutions and FinTech companies in regulatory compliance (both consumer and financial crime), direct and third-party risk management, supervision and examinations, governance, internal audit, investments, M&A, lending, capital markets, and corrective action/remediation responses to supervisory concerns and enforcement actions. Juan serves as general counsel to the Financial & International Business Association (FIBA) and is a member of the Legal Advisory Committee of the American Fintech Council. Juan is also a member of the Bank Receivership Task Force, created in March of 2023. Prior to joining Winston, Juan served as Deputy General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer at Cross River Bank, one of the country’s most active FinTech financial services organizations, and as General Counsel for Standard Chartered Bank (Americas – Private Bank) and BBVA Private Bank (Americas).