LendingCrowd, Scotland’s only fintech lending platform, has appointed Robbie McKenzie to the newly created post of General Counsel and Chief Risk & Compliance Officer.

A dual-qualified lawyer (i.e. qualified as both a Chartered Legal Executive lawyer - a qualified lawyer who is trained to specialise as an expert in one or two particular areas of the law - and a solicitor) who holds practising certificates in both Scotland and England, Robbie will lead LendingCrowd’s legal, risk and compliance function and act as its anti-money-laundering officer. He will be particular concerned with ensuring that LendingCrowd adheres to the Financial Conduct Authority’s new rules for peer-to-peer platforms, which were announced earlier this month and will come into effect in December.

Robbie worked for a London-based private equity fund management firm called Pollen Street Capital, where he was also the chief risk and compliance officer. He has also done senior legal, risk and compliance jobs at Avant, the Dollar Financial Group, the Bank of Scotland and the Royal Bank of Scotland.

He has led several businesses through the FCA authorisation process and has managed the implementation of the Europea Union's General Data Protection Regulation and the FCA's Senior Managers and Certification Regime in previous jobs. Few organisations of the size of LendingCrowd employ an in-house general counsel, but the firm wants to operate at the forefront of regulation and compliance, rather than simply meeting its statutory obligations. It was one of the first fintech lenders to receive full FCA authorisation, which it did approximately five years ago.