Katherine Razdolsky Rothstein

Katherine is senior counsel in Taft’s Paytech and Payment Systems practice group, where she counsels business clients on a wide variety of payment and technology related matters. She is experienced in drafting various agreements for payment products, as well as negotiating software, system, service and platform agreements.  Katherine counsels clients on compliance with complex payment laws, regulations and industry rules, and is skilled at identifying and assisting clients mitigate operational, contractual, and compliance risks. She has years of experience applying a practical and business-minded approach to evaluating each clients’ unique needs to identify efficiencies, cost saving measures and risk mitigation.

Katherine focuses a significant portion of her practice advising on and negotiating highly nuanced contracts in the payments industry including:

• Treasury Management Services Agreements;
• Correspondent Banking Agreements;
• Payment Platform Agreements;
• Supplier/Vendor Agreements;
• ACH processing related agreements; and
• Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Agreements (including embedded and integrated payment components).

• Treasury Management Suite of Agreements
Prepared a comprehensive treasury management services master agreement, inclusive of authorization forms and setup forms, to simplify presentation to customers while minimizing the bank’s risk of exposure from unauthorized transactions.
• Correspondent Bank Relationship
Negotiated agreements between U.S. and foreign banking institutions for a client bank seeking to establish correspondent banking relationships abroad. The client sought to partner with banks that could accept foreign currency payments on behalf of its customers and to transfer such payments to the customer’s U.S. account held with the client bank and helped the client identify and understand the terms governing its legal relationship with the foreign bank and negotiated terms to maximize security of data, protect confidential and customer information, comply with applicable U.S. privacy laws, and minimize overall risk to the client bank.
• Account Conversions Resulting from Bank Acquisition
Prepared change in terms notices for business and consumer bank account conversions necessitated by an acquisition by a client bank. Also identified the client’s legal obligations to provide notices to customers for each account type, compared the terms of the predecessor account to the terms of the successor account, and prepared each legally required notice for the client bank. Additionally, advised the client on the time frames in which each notice was to be supplied to comply with applicable law and delivered clearly identified notices with “how to use” explanations.

• Co-author (with Jacqueline August) “Gender-Responsive Procurement Benefits of Strategically Incorporating Women-Owned Businesses into Corporate Procurement Strategies,” WLAM Journal (Vol. 1 Issue 2, 2023)
• Co-author (with Catherine Kavanagh Kokotovich),
  “Advising the Fintech Client -Identifying Regulatory
  Issues,” Michigan Business Law Journal, Fall 2019
• “Ways to be a Fintech: Exploring Current Legal Frameworks for Operating a FinTech,” Great Lakes Association for Financial Professionals (GLAFP) Fall Symposium, September 2022.
• Co-presenter (with Melissa M. Bridges), “Developments with Emerging Payment Methods Mini Seminar,” Financial Institutions Compliance Cooperative, March 8, 2022 and March 15, 2022
• Co-presenter (with Karolina M. Powalka), “Legal Briefing: Blockchain: What is it? How Can I Use It?,” Institute for Supply Management (ISM) Southeast Michigan, February, 5, 2021
• “A Holistic Approach to Contracting,” Financial Institutions Compliance Cooperative (FICC), October 2020
• Co-presenter (with Karolina Powalka), “Vendor Management with a Payments Focus,” Great Lakes Association for Financial Professionals (GLAFP) Fall Symposium, October 2020.
• Co-presenter (with Karolina Powalka and Kyle Traver), “Contracting Lessons – Issues brought on by COVID-19,” Ann Arbor Spark, July 2020
• Co-presenter (with Jonathan Berg), “COVID-19 Contracting Lessons,” The Clearing House Payments Authority, June 2, 2020
• Co-presenter (with Catherine Kavanagh Kokotovich), “UCC-4A: A Look at Commercially Reasonable Security Procedures,” The Clearing House’s Payments University: A Virtual Experience, May 13, 2020
• Co-presenter (with Catherine Kavanagh Kokotovich), “A Juggler’s Guide to Portal Payment Risk and Non-Disclosures,” Great Lakes Association for Financial Professionals (GLAFP) Spring Training, Novi, MI, May 9, 2019
• “The Future of FinTech in Detroit,” Detroit FinTech Association, Panel Moderator, December 2018
• “What to Watch For in the Privacy and Security Realm When Negotiating Services Agreements,” Detroit Treasury Management Association, March 9, 2017
• “ACH Update: Same Day ACH,” FICC Telebriefing, November 2015
• “Commercially Reasonable Security Procedures: Mitigating Risk Associated with Fraudulent Payment Orders,” FICC Regional Meetings, August 2016
• “Online and Mobile Products: Checking the Role of Authorized Signers and Agents on Consumer Accounts,” FICC Telebriefing, October 15-16, 2014
• “DOJ, ADA, Websites and You,” FICC Telebriefing, April 15 & 23, 2014
• “Vendor Management: Manage the Risk, Manage the Vendor,” FICC Regional Meeting