Michael Gastauer

Michael Gastauer is a German entrepreneur who currently serves as founder and CEO of digital banking provider WB21. WB21 claims offices in London, Berlin and San Francisco.
Career
Originally from Germany, Gastauer founded his first business, an asset management firm in 1998. He founded the German online payment processing company Apax Global Payments in 2002. Apax was Europe's first multi-channel online payment system, processing eCommerce transactions. Gastauer claims that Apax was acquired by banking group CIMB for $480 million, although no records of the acquisition appear online or in CIMB's annual report.
Gastauer founded the Gastauer Family Office (GFO), a single family office which claims to mange over $2.1 Billion in assets owned by the Gastauer family. The Gastauer Family Office claims to have a venture capital arm investing in FinTech startups. GFO manages the substantial asset structure of the Gastauer Family. Gastauer serves as Chairman of the Gastauer Family Office. He is also the founder of WB21 where he serves as the company's CEO. In September 2016, WB21 Group claimed that JP Morgan had valued the company at US$2.2 Billion. JP Morgan declined to comment on its involvement with WB21.
Controversy
Michael Gastauer was suspended from his management position in 2004 because of irregularities in management in connection with the collapse of G & S Vermögensverwaltung GmbH.
In a June 2016 article, Gastauer told Manager Magazin that WB21 did not have a banking license in Germany or the UK, but that an application for a German banking license was being prepared by lawyers. The article also mentions suspicious web traffic patterns and allegations of fake social media followers on Gastauer's social media accounts.
Apax UK's court-appointed liquidators took Gastauer to court after determining that "the assets of Apax UK have been misappropriated." According to an affidavit from Apax UK's Chief Compliance Officer Peter Arnold, Gastauer conducted business using the alias of Michael Van Rijn, purportedly the CFO of Apax.
The sale of Apax Global Payments Group that Gastauer partook in 2008 has recently caused some controversy discussion. It appears that some of the legal entities of Apax Group have been dissolved. It is assumed that the sale was a sale of Apax´s assets, clients and technology rather than a take over of the legal entities.

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