Laying still and expiring in the deep shadows. This is the fate of each and every fintech. Being wound down, liquidated, broken up and sold.
One, 1derful, not only lives to try and fight another day, it is a literal Lazarus.
Luke Bunbury, the 1derful CEO, his missus and a mate represented the founding shareholders of this soon to be floundering fintech founded in 2019.
Multiple schemes, untested systems and the vision thing aplenty later 1derful’s inevitable fate was to falter.
1derful founder Luke Bunbury is now talking revival and relevance. Thanks to a highly favourable ruling of the Supreme Court of NSW.
Bunbury claims to have already developed and prototyped a complete end to end core banking solution.
1nderful, which started out with B2C on its mind is now well and truly B2B.
Things were sour within 1derful from early on.
Luke Bunbury fell in with some fintech funny money. A special purpose vehicle. ASX-listed Axiom Property were the dunderheads nominally behind this SPV Fletch, with delusions of establishing a payment division. Colin Seymour, a Melbourne financier, was the brains behind Fletch and for whatever reason took a shine to Luke Bunbury and 1derful.
Seymour’s ally Michael Birch was the final defendant and through one of his companies Birch was a shareholder in Fletch, the SPV.
They all fell out in unfortunate circumstances.
Fletch and its overseers conspired to gain control over the company’s debts and force 1derful into receivership.
This is what happened.
Now Luke Bunbury has won justice and blood against Fletch, Seymour and Birch in the Supreme Court of NSW.
Exemplary damages are to be paid, Justice Ashley Black ruled on November 12.
“The Plaintiffs have established their claim for conspiracy against Fletch and exemplary damages may be ordered against Fletch on that basis, as sought by the Plaintiffs” Black wrote.
“However, I should allow submissions as an award of exemplary damages and its quantum, prior to making orders, where that issue was not sufficiently addressed by the parties in closing submissions.”
It seems the compensation and damages Fletch and Birch and Seymour will pay 1derful will run well into the millions.
“From the outset Justice Black was on board that a wrong had been committed” Bunbury said.
Thus, Bunbury’s counsel was able to early on convince Black to join 1derful and 1derful Group as plaintiffs.
The summary by Justice Black of the nature of the 1derful business was that it “involved proprietary technology and a licensing arrangement with Mastercard and other partners which would permit the provision of branded debit and credit products for particular businesses that allowed clients to use branded debit and credit cards to provide instalment and hybrid payment options.”
This is the polar opposite of Bunbury’s pitch to Banking Day, back in November 2020, that 1derful’s offer was a “proprietary product will be a service account that will allow subscribers to consolidate the management of their banking products from numerous service providers.”
1derful effectively closed long ago and Bunbury is chronically in arrears on payroll.
These final salary payments will be made once the damages are paid, Bunbury told Banking Day.