Consultants

Sophie Peeters

Sophie’s background is one of a financial regulatory lawyer. She practiced financial regulation for almost ten years at a magic circle law firm. The last three years of her time there she started focusing on FinTech and payments, assisting – mainly consortia of banks – with the regulatory issues of their joint innovative payment products.

From the ambition to focus only on payments and to be able to be closer to the payments community, Sophie left the bar to become an independent consultant. In her consultancy role, she assisted A78 (the former federation of Belgian TPPs) in their interactions with the Belgian banks and the National Bank of Belgium on the implementation of the PSD2. From the observation that there was a need for a representation of the Belgian payments industry more broadly, she co-founded PayBelgium, where she was actively involved in developing and defending common policy positions on behalf of the payment service providers in Belgium.

Accordingly, Sophie combines a deep financial regulatory and payments expertise with innovative thinking and a vast fintech network. Sophie also became a certified cybersecurity professional. As such, she grasps the regulatory developments in that area (DORA) both from a legal and technical perspective and is able to bridge between legal/compliance functions and information security functions. 


Elke Stroobants

Elke has over 20 years of experience negotiating commercial contracts (IP/ICT, outsourcing, distribution) with/for the software industry, including fintech. She has worked for startups, scale-ups as well as well-established multinationals as a lawyer, in-house legal counsel and, currently, external consultant.

Her experience includes DORA and outsourcing requirements from a contractual and ICT third-party risk perspective, helping financial institutions translate regulatory requirements into workable contractual arrangements with ICT service providers and outsourcees that also reflect commercial and operational realities.