Visa Europe has appointed Prini Pithouse as its deputy general counsel (GC) and executive director of commercial law, after she spent a year serving as the payments company's executive director of commercial law.

Pithouse joined Visa Europe in May 2015 after moving from Lloyds. During her time there, she held the roles of head of legal and commercial for group IT and head of legal for group operations.

The former legacy Barlow Lyde & Gilbert lawyer joined Lloyds in 2006 as a senior lawyer. She will now report to Visa Europe's GC, Niamh Grogan.

Grogan is also a former Lloyds employee and held the role of group director of competition and consumer policy. Prior to that role, she was EU and completion partner at legacy SJ Berwin.

Other people on the Visa legal team include Stephen McCue, who is SVP legal director for commercial law.

These changes in leadership come after Visa Inc acquired Visa Europe for €21.2bn (£15.1bn) in November of last year. The acquisition saw Linklaters, Macfarlanes, Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz all secure advisory roles.

The acquisitions added approximately 3,000 European issuers, more than 500 million card accounts and in excess of €1.5trn in payments volumes to the Visa Inc portfolio.