Fintech Lanistar risks financial collapse as it fails to pay managers and faces legal action
Payments startup Lanistar is reportedly facing a series of employment tribunal cases over unpaid salaries from current and former staff, including members of its senior management team.
The company has had problems with securing funding, has been accused of mistreating staff, and has not yet launched any of its payment cards.
Despite this, it has received widespread attention, marketed online by Instagram influencers including footballers and Love Island stars, according to media reports.
Two of Lanistar’s senior management team, its director of banking and financial services Jeremy Baber and chief financial officer Bill Suglani, have opened claims against the company over five months of unpaid salaries.
Though they still stand with Lanistar: “It is purely logging an outstanding salary…the reality is Bill and I are still firmly behind, supporting and committed to the company,” Baber told Financial News.
Lanistar also has seven outstanding County Court Judgments against it, a type of court order in the UK that can be registered against a company if it fails to repay the money it owes.
These run between 11 May to 4 August, valued at a combined £255,583, according to Registry Trust data.
Yet in an emailed statement on 17 August, Kiziloz suggested that the company’s issues would be short-lived.
“The types of public issues we have faced would have been devastating for any other start-up but not for the team at Lanistar!” Kiziloz wrote.
“We currently sit at just over 1m registered customers amidst all the controversy and at record speed, this fact allows me to manifest and visualise that the adversity we are facing will only be a small paragraph or a few sentences in my autobiography in a few years,” he added.
“We are confident the current issues will be resolved in the very near future and also of a successful launch.”