Temitope
Ibrahim Lawal, CAMS
Temitope Lawal is a senior counsel and vice president with the Global Digital Banking Group at Citi. He provides legal guidance regarding digital and technology solutions for Citi’s US consumer business units including cards, retail banking and wealth management.
Before joining Citi, he was a senior attorney with the Research & Innovation Division (“RID”) at the New York State Department of Financial Services (“DFS”). The RID administers DFS’s issuance of “BitLicenses” and limited purpose trust charters to cryptocurrency exchanges, crypto-custody providers and other entities engaged in virtual currency business activities in New York State.
He was instrumental to the issuance of multiple BitLicenses, virtual currency trust charters and authorization of newlines of digital products such as Robinhood, Bakkt, Fidelity, BitGo, Gemini Trust Company LLC and Paxos Trust Company LLC’s offering of a price-stable cryptocurrency, commonly known as a “stablecoin” pegged to the US Dollar. Similarly, he was involved in the supervision and examination of licensed and chartered entities with regard to their compliance with DFS’s risk-addressing policies and procedures and standards pertaining to data privacy, anti-money laundering, transaction monitoring, consumer, cybersecurity and anti-fraud protections.Temitope is a recipient of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services National Interest Waiver for his outstanding expertise and achievement within the fintech, blockchain and virtual currencies industry.