Ilham Wahyu

Ilham is a Partner of Foster's Banking, Finance and Fintech Practice Group. He is known for his expertise in handling digital payment, fintech and financial services regulatory matters and for his counsel to a number of prominent fintech companies and large financial institutions, often handling licensing, regulatory compliance and approvals, corporate governance and product structuring matters.

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Ilham has leveraged his regulatory and market expertise throughout his career to become a fintech and payments expert, having advised on a wide range of innovative business models, from payment services and electronic money through to finance, banking and digital lending companies. He routinely counsels these clients regarding regulatory developments affecting complex financial instruments and cross-border transactions in highly regulated industries, as well as key regulatory frameworks relevant to the technology sector, notably dynamic regulations on data privacy.

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Ilham’s expertise also extends to advising clients on both buy-side and sell-side mergers and acquisitions, venture capital fundraisings and private debt, and other strategic transactions, including divestitures and restructurings in a variety of industries, including banking, finance and fintech, technology/SaaS and consumer retail. As digital innovation and disruption is affecting all of Foster's clients, Ilham is frequently engaged to advise both traditional players and new entrants in the fintech space on how to harness the commercial potential of these new opportunities while at the same time minimising the associated risks.

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In addition to his transactional practice, Ilham provides strategic regulatory advice to a diverse array of local and foreign startups, ranging from market entry strategies, investment structuring, contract review and counsel relating to personal data protection and ongoing compliance matters, to the identification and preparation of required regulatory filings, development of supporting legal opinions, third-party risk management, and review of disclosures and required terms.

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At Foster, Ilham effectively deploys the aforesaid capabilities to serve the firm's multinational clients in a variety of different contexts including:

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· implementing regulatory reform in fintech and financial services industries;

· helping clients with changes to their business (including new products or services);

· assisting tech entrepreneurs and innovators develop, launch, buy, and sell technology products and services;

· supporting clients in their interactions with regulators in a supervisory or enforcement context; and

· conducting diligence and assisting with transaction execution for acquisitions and disposals in the regulated space.

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Before joining Foster, Ilham spent more than 15 years as corporate lawyer at one of Indonesia's largest law firms and also as senior counsel at several prominent fintech startups such as Moladin, Xendit and Oto.com. Some of notable clients that Ilham has advised and supported include XTransfer (China), AirWallex (Korea), Paytm (India), LG International (Korea), AirWallex (Australia), Mitsubishi Corporation (Japan), Industrial Bank of Korea, MoneyGram, Tata Consultancy Services (India) and OPPO (China).

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Ilham is praised by clients for his technical insight combined with a good level of commercial pragmatism as to what is valuable to explore and what is not, effectively reinforces his strong legal knowledge to distill overly complex issues and explains them in complete and comprehensive ways.

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