Heena Merchant is Of Counsel in Paul Hastings' Fintech practice and is based in the firm's Dallas office. She represents a broad range of financial services clients, including banks, traditional depository institutions, non-bank financial institutions, Fintech companies, payment processors, trusted platform companies, payment networks, digital asset platforms, and private equity and investment firms investing in Fintech companies.

Heena has deep expertise in federal and state financial services laws, money-laundering laws, payments regulatory laws, the Bank Secrecy Act, Regulation E, federal and state money transmission laws, federal and state gift card laws, consumer protection laws, card network and ACH rules, and other state and federal statutes related to payments.

She regularly advises traditional financial services and Fintech clients on issues such as ongoing regulatory compliance, assisting clients in all aspects of product development, including structuring of such products with regulatory considerations in mind, and commercialization of payments product offerings. Heena also regularly advises clients in the development of digital asset products with regulatory considerations in mind, and frequently assists technology clients in developing strategic partnerships with financial institutions and payment providers, including drafting and negotiating commercial agreements with such partners, and structuring and negotiating large commercial transactions between parties in the global payments space. She also regularly assists private equity, investment and venture fund clients in Fintech acquisitions and capital-raising activities.

Heena also focuses her practice on financial services licensing and registration, frequently assisting clients in the license application process, changes of control, and related regulatory filing and inquiries. She frequently represents financial services clients in inquiries and matters before federal and state regulatory agencies.

Examples of her work in this space include:

• Advising leading payment card networks on a broad range of regulatory issues, structuring and negotiating new product offerings on behalf of card networks, and assisting in regulatory diligence in connection with acquisitions.
• Advising leading private equity firms in the acquisition and sale of payments and financial services companies.
• Advising large banks, Fintechs and trusted platform companies on a broad range of regulatory issues related to product development and acquisitions of payments and technology companies.
• Advising leading digital asset trading platforms in obtaining and maintaining federal and state licenses, as well as commercialization of new products.
• Assisting in the structuring, negotiating and launch of various rewards and loyalty programs offered by banks and large Fintech companies.
• Assisting leading property management software companies and travel provider platforms on production development, contract negotiations and ongoing regulatory compliance.
• Assisting Fintechs on federal and state financial services licensing matters, including obtaining licensure, responding to regulatory inquiries and conducting regulatory due diligence in connection with transactions.

Representations

• Visa in its $1 Billion acquisition of Pismo.
• GTCR, a leading private equity firm, in the sale of its portfolio company, Paya Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: PAYA), to Nuvei Corporation.
• GTCR in the sale of its portfolio company, RevSpring, Inc., a leader in patient and consumer engagement and payment solutions, to Frazier Healthcare Partners.
• Banc of California in its acquisition of Global Payroll Gateway, Inc.’s payments platform and technology, as well as the company’s wholly-owned subsidiary Deepstack Technologies.
• Integrum, an innovative investment firm focused on partnering with technology-enabled services companies, in its acquisition of MerchantE, a leading end-to-end payment platform, from Cielo, one of the world’s largest payments companies.
• Paysafe Group Holdings Limited and Skrill USA in connection with its merger with Foley Trasimene Acquisition Corp. II (NYSE: BFT), a special purpose acquisition company, pursuant to which Paysafe became a publicly traded entity.
• Salesforce in its partnership with Stripe to integrate Stripe’s technology into its Commerce Cloud Payments solution.
• Samsung Pay on its launch, utilizing novel financial services contracts among various parties in the payments ecosystem.
• Coinbase on a variety of regulatory matters since its inception in 2013 and ongoing product launches and regulatory questions.
• Gemini since 2015 in its creation of the Gemini Dollar and the related compliance position.
• Assisting in the structuring, negotiating and launch of various rewards and loyalty programs offered by large FinTech platform companies.
• Assisting multiple leading property management software companies on production development, contract negotiations and ongoing regulatory compliance.
• Assisting multiple leading travel provider platforms on production development, contract negotiations and ongoing regulatory compliance.