The founder of a new bank that aims to help people ‘pay off their debts sooner’ allegedly owes a friend £30,000

IAm Bank founder Lee Travers appearing on digital financial channel Cheddar.Cheddar / screengrab

• A former friend of IAm Bank founder Lee Travers claims he gave him his life savings to invest in shares in 2011.
• The former friend says he has been unable to retrieve either the shares or the money despite repeated attempts.
• It is not the first time Travis has been accused of owing people money — he and a former business partner are being chased for debts relating to a previous venture.
• Travers has not responded to several requests for comment.

LONDON — The founder of a US startup bank is being pursued by a former friend who claims he is owed £30,000.

Peter Swift, 40, claims he gave IAm Bank CEO Lee Travers his life savings to invest in shares in 2011 while Travers was working in London. Swift asked Travers to transfer the shares into his name around a year later but claims he has still not received either the shares or the money, despite repeated requests over five years. The pair did not sign any form of a contract before the transfers, making it difficult to enforce.

“Once I decide I trust someone, I don’t really go for contracts and stuff like that,” Swift told Business Insider. “I trust people — I’m stupid like that.”

Peter Swift.Peter Swift

Swift, who now lives in Ibiza, provided emails between himself and Travers, bank records, and legal letters to support his claims. Travers did not respond to repeated requests for comment from BI over a period of weeks.

Travers would likely dispute Swift’s account and repeatedly says in the email correspondence seen by Business Insider that he is acting in good faith. In one email he said the money “will be settled in full.” There is no suggestion of wrongdoing on Travers’ part.

But the dispute is relevant given Travers is currently trying to set up a digital challenger bank that aims to help young people struggling with debt.

Travers is currently understood to be in Chicago setting up digital challenger bank IAm Bank. In a blog post advertising the new venture published May 16, Travers says IAm Bank will help people with “paying off their debts sooner and building their wealth and savings faster.”

Travers has promoted his new venture extensively in the media. He toldUS financial TV channel Cheddar earlier this year that IAm Bank will become the “Apple Store” of banking. Banking Technology reportedthat the startup has secured $3 million in funding and is targeting $20 million by launch.

Business Insider previously reported that Travers is being pursued over alleged unpaid debts by former contractors and staff who worked for Travers’ last company. Swift first got in contact with Business Insider in the wake of this story.

“We’ve come to the realisation that we might not ever get the money back,” Swift said, referring to himself and his wife. “When your first story came out, and I saw he’d been doing exactly the same thing to other people, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

‘A sharp, smart guy’

Swift first met Travers through his brother when Swift moved to London from the Caribbean in 2010. At the time, Travers was working for an events company with Swift’s brother, but Travers soon moved to a job at financial software business Monitise.

Travers worked at Monitise between 2011 and 2013 and rose to the level of executive vice president there, according to his LinkedIn profile. Founded in 2003, Monitise was one of the early pioneers of Britain’s fintech sector and built apps for banks. (At one point the public company was valued at £1 billion, but it sold for just £70 million earlier this year after reporting heavy losses.)

Swift told BI that Travers struck him as “a sharp, smart guy.”

“He was a professional, he looked like a suave English businessman,” Swift said. “He talked the talk. He knew his way around town and — I wouldn’t say I was in awe, but I was looking up to him a bit.”

Originally from Australia, Swift had worked in hospitality in the Caribbean and had never invested in stocks before. He said he remembers hearing that Travers had “invested $20,000 and made $250,000 pretty quickly. That was the thing that got me interested.”

Swift tried to open a trading account himself but was unable to provide the documentation required. He had only recently come to the country and was in between addresses. Swift and his girlfriend were living with Travers at the time.

As a workaround, he suggested to his then girlfriend, now wife, that they give their life savings at the time, £30,000, to Travers to invest.

“We had a big discussion about it,” Swift told BI. “We had heated discussions about it. We sensed that we trusted him — we were living in his house, he was about to get me a job at Monitise.”

Swift claims Travers agreed to the arrangement and Swift transferred the Irishman money in instalments in 2011, according to transaction records seen by Business Insider. Soon after, Swift began working at Monitise alongside Travers.

‘Alluded or insinuated’

Swift claims he first asked Travers to transfer the shares to an account in his name in 2012 but was told this was a complicated process. Since then, Swift said he has tried repeatedly to retrieve either the money or the shares but has been unsuccessful.

“He never actually said I used your money to buy shares,” Swift told BI. “He never actually said anything about what he had done with my money. He always alluded or insinuated.”

Business Insider has seen emails between Swift and Travers that appear to support Swift’s claim, including one from Travers’ account in 2013 that promises Swift “the full principal of your investment from my own personal funds on February 1st, 2014.”An email sent from Travers address in 2013, appearing to acknowledge the deal.Screenshot

In his emails, Travers claims an ongoing dispute with Monitise over his exit from the company in 2013 was delaying his ability to pay. Around this time, Travers moved to mobile payment company MPayMe as an executive. MPayMe was sold to Powa Technologies in mid-2014 and Travers left shortly after.

Swift claims he didn’t receive anything by the February 2014 deadline set out in the email and eventually hired a solicitor in 2015 to draft a legal letter. The letter, seen by BI, threatens action against Travers. Swift said he has been unable to serve the letter as Travers had moved address.

Swift provided correspondence with solicitors Simon Burn supporting his claim. The lawyer he dealt with declined to comment on the case when contacted by Business Insider, saying he was not authorised to speak.

The ‘Apple Store’ of banking

Travers left Monitise in 2013 and, after his stint at MPayMe, went on to run WeAreBriqs, a fintech business that built apps for banks. Swift first contacted Business Insider after we reported that Travers and his then business partner were being chased for alleged debts of at least £100,000 by former staff and contractors at WeAreBriqs.

Business Insider has been unable to reach Travers for comment on this story. Emails, voicemails, and texts to numbers and addresses thought to belong to Travers went unanswered.

Business Insider contacted the press officer for IAm Bank for comment on this story but we were told they no longer worked for the startup. The former press officer said no one was now handling press for the startup and no alternative email address is listed on the website. The press officer said they would contact Travers about BI’s story but we heard no response.

IAm Bank’s website lists an address in East London as one of the company’s four global offices. BI visited in early December and found the address was occupied by a press relations agency. A representative for the PR company told BI that IAm Bank had not been at the address for “four or five months” and had not left a forwarding address.

A property agent who represents the building in question told BI they had no memory of IAm Bank and recalled selling the unit in question around a year and a half ago. The PR company did not respond to an email asking for clarification.A screenshot from IAm Bank’s website.Screenshot/IAm Bank

Swift’s hope of retrieving his money has dwindled over the years but he told BI he is reluctant to give up the chase.

“We’d been working as villa managers in the Caribbean. That £30,000 was the savings we had saved while working in the Caribbean,” he said. “At that moment, that was our entire life savings. That’s why I put so much pressure on him.

“We know that when we worked in the Caribbean, we worked so hard, it was such a hard job for us. That’s why I’m still chasing after five years. Just to let it go, it means all that work we did was for nothing.”