The scam behind bunq’s India incident
I have been an avid bunq user for years. Being an expat and constantly moving, bunq was just the kind of bank I needed (for the record, it is a Dutch challenger bank, comparable to Revolut, Monzo and N26). I love its features and community. However, when it comes to bending the truth for commercial success, my love ends rather quickly. So, what happened?
“bunq user attacked in India, for using his coloured card”
When I first read the news, which was featured in many large Dutch news outlets, I was shocked. Someone getting attacked for a pride-coloured card, being LGBTQ or not, is terrifying and saddening, no matter if this happens in Europe, the United States or India. The news came on August 8, just a few days after Pride Amsterdam, and bunq was quick to reply with a post by bunq’s founder Ali Niknam, proclaiming universal love — heartwrenching. At the same time, bunq started to reply on twitter, either by saying they could not give out more information or by promoting its colourful card to twitter users. No such thing as bad publicity, I suppose (Dutch satirical news website De Speld even covered it).
That was when I started to get a funny feeling about the situation. Promoting your product through the news of a despicable attack? Come on. And then there was the timing: just a few days after Pride Amsterdam, with all the annual media attention for our community still present. I had not been in the Netherlands, and even I was overwhelmed with Pride coverage.
A few days later, I am having lunch with a colleague from India, and while paying with my bunq card, the waiter comments: “well, that card seems risky nowadays” — the news had spread fast. We shared a quick concern on hate crimes and moved on. As we sat down, my Indian colleague chipped in: “you know, I find this whole incident strange. In India, we don’t usually associate the rainbow flag with homosexuality, it is just a sign of happiness”. I was slightly confused. He continued: “and how the f*ck can you even pay with a Dutch debit card in Lucknow nowadays”. Turns out, he knows the region rather well.
Discussion on Facebook
The same day, a friend shared a Facebook post in a group I had joined years ago when moving to the Netherlands. Some guy had the same funny feeling about the incident and did a little research. In Indian media outlets, there was no mention of the incident whatsoever. He decided to call the Dutch embassy in Delhi: they did not know about the incident either. A second try via email did not really help clarify the situation: yes, the story was known by now, but there had been no consular request for help and the embassy could not confirm the story. Rather strange that your bank is informed about such incident, but not your embassy. No conclusive evidence of any wrongdoing, but the feeling got funnier.

The Facebook user kept on digging. He found out that the original publication of the incident came from an organisation called Traveller Assist, which — as the name suggests — assists travellers on behalf of their travel insurer. This organisation seems to be under investigation by authorities in Nepal, for conducting illegal business activities. The Kathmandu Post, a reputable newspaper, as confirmed by my Indian colleague, wrote a story on Traveller Assist, claiming (and proving) that the organisation put up a fake news article, supposedly by the Kathmandu Post, on its website. Furthermore, the Kathmandu Post, apparently in some kind of battle mode, contacted several insurance companies that Traveller Assist claims to work with; none of them is actually partnering with the organisation. You can find the articles here and here, including a link to the fake news article. Oh, that funny feeling.
Further research into Traveller Assist
I tried to put the whole situation into perspective: this could not actually be true, could it? All these news outlets shared the story, they certainly did check the source, or did they not? Whom have they talked to?
Having previously worked in the trust sector for some years, I developed a certain skill set for retrieving company information and now was the time to use that skill for the greater good (or something like that). My first lead was the article in Parool. They refer to a Sarah Jansen, case manager at Traveller Assist. A quick google search leads to no valuable information; two articles are somewhat relevant. One article in Safe Travels Magazine and one in iPMI Magazine. Not necessarily the most trustworthy sources (with regards two source verification, etc.) — more on the second article later on. The article in Safe Travels Magazine has a picture of Ms. Jansen: blue blouse, friendly smile, office in the background. I would presume it is (part of) a stock photo, but a quick image search returns nothing. A LinkedIn search for Sarah Jansen is equally disappointing: there is no Sarah Jansen with a connection to Traveller Assist (neither is there a resemblance of any profile picture with the (stock) photo).

Globally operating company with just two employees
Already searching through LinkedIn, I decided to look up Traveller Assist and see who works there. Maybe Sarah Jansen was just spelled wrong or the journalist misheard the name. Interestingly, however, there seem to be working only two people in this globally operating organisation (according to their website). These two people are Jonathan Bancroft, Managing Director, and Danny Kaine, Head of Assistance.

According to his profile, Mr. Bancroft worked at KPMG and Lloyd’s previously. Searching for his name in combination with one of the employers returns no usable result, however. Of course, this does not have to be suspicious, but working as a director in a firm such as KPMG without any mentions is rather unusual. Perhaps his supposed role as intelligence officer in the British army is real though — at least that would explain the photofit-like profile picture. Furthermore, similar to Ms. Jansen, the results for Mr. Bancroft mainly show some news articles in (more or less) obscure online magazines.
Danny Kaine follows the same pattern: a few articles in online magazines, no recognisable photo, no life (except for a Twitter account that was active until May 2017). He is also mentioned in the articles of the Kathmandu Post and even in The Guardian — all as part of the helicopter scam investigation in Nepal. The aforementioned Twitter account has a lot of photos, making the profile seemingly more credible. Unfortunately, there are no photos of Mr. Kaine himself and many pictures seem to be copied from other sources. His last picture, flying over a snow-covered landscape, is actually a cropped version of this photo (and part of a slideshow on this page). This picture, taken during breakfast, according to Mr. Kaine, is copied from volcanodiscovery.com. This picture, taken while on his way to a meeting, is copied from Flickr (taken in 2009). His aircraft spotting in Lima, is actually a photo linked exclusively to Russian websites, such as this one. You get the idea.
Moving on from Twitter: his LinkedIn profile states that he worked, amongst others, for the BBC and CNN; but as with Mr. Bancroft, there are no results whatsoever to substantiate this claim. Apparently, Mr. Kaine was also founder of Nomad SOS, another travel assistance company. It does not seem to exist anymore and news coverage is limited to the same pattern of online magazines and blogs. It is odd that a founder is never pictured in any of the articles, is it not? Amusingly, there is a reply on the TripAdvisor forum, stating how great Nomad SOS helped out with a medical emergency. Nomad SOS, however, described its product/service as a medical ID card. Did someone mix up their travel assistance companies? The reply on the forum is from “a British expat” with just that one post.
Update 31/10: there now seems to be another team member that is actually searchable. Forest Ray. There indeed seems to be a Forest Ray out there, but it will take some time to see if everything checks out. He states that he worked as contributing author on a NY Times piece (actually one about the insurer fraud in Nepal, mentioning Jonathan Bancroft), but there is no evidence/mention of it in the article. He also claims that a short story he wrote was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. There is no evidence of that either and furthermore, it seems that no respected author would mention the mere nomination.
Locating the company
Neither Jansen, nor Bancroft or Kaine led to any information that could give credibility to Traveller Assist or the incident at hand. A logical next step was to search for the company in the relevant business register. So where is Traveller Assist actually located? According to the International Travel & Health Insurance Journal (another great online publication with tremendous background checks, I assume), Traveller Assist was set to launch a new centre near Oxford and even “to be led from the UK”. The UK Companies House returns no results for Traveller Assist, however (Traveller Assist Ltd. is the official name according to the website). It could be, of course, that the company is registered under another name. Therefore, I conducted an officer search for Jonathan Bancroft, as he would most likely be an appointed officer of the company, being its managing director. Four Jonathan Bancrofts show up in the results, none of them being the one we are looking for. Results for Danny Kaine (and Daniel Kaine, for that matter) stay empty.

According to Mr. Bancroft’s LinkedIn profile, the Kathmandu Post and this article on Medium (relating to the Kathmandu Post story), Traveller Assist is based in Ireland. A few clicks through the Irish business register later, another disappointment awaited: no Traveller Assist in Ireland either. The International Travel & Health Insurance Journal article states two more locations: a “regional operations centre” in Peru and a “new office” in Kathmandu. The Peruvian business register returned no results for Traveller Assist either, a pity. But then I got lucky, the first actual result: a company named Traveller Assist is registered with the Office of Company Registrar in Nepal. That is, basically, all the information available, which means that there is still no manner to verify the directors or any ownership stake. The company has been registered on 29–9–2075 (Nepali calendar), which translates to mid-January 2019 in my calculations, but probably a bit later, as the Kathmandu Post wrote on 10 February 2019 that “according to the Department of Industry, there are no records for any offices for Traveller Assist in Nepal”. It appears that the company was only established after the story came out, in an attempt to do some damage control or “save” its reputation.
The Kathmandu Post and the Medium article both talk about Australia as well, more specifically about whether or not being established in Australia (Traveller Assist stated that on the website at some point, it seems). A lookup in the Australian Business Register was swiftly conducted. Traveller Assist was a registered business name until 17 January 2019 of the sole proprietor (or “sole trader” in Australia) Cadan Kaine. Sounds familiar? The sole proprietorship is still active and registered at apartment 5 — 3 Parkes Street in Manly Vale, near Sydney. That apartment was sold in December 2017 for 842,500 Australian dollar. Not bad, Mr. Kaine, not bad. Sadly, apart from this address, Cadan Kaine remains an even bigger mystery for the internet than Danny Kaine.

The land registry of New South Wales reveals that the owner of 5–3 Parkes Street is a Monique Maree Webb. She should at least know if a company is registered at her place, shouldn’t she? Unfortunately, you guessed it, I was not able to find a Monique Maree Webb that fit. Quite a disappointment.
Payr, the “insurtech” startup
Time to take one step back. The iPMI Magazine article, in which Sarah Jansen was mentioned, states that Traveller Assist launched a global payment platform named Payr and that it has “successfully facilitated claims payments of £1 million in its first six-months of operations”. Quite the achievement. It should not be a problem to find information on this company then. A simple Google search lead to another Payr, however. A Norwegian fintech app. Only on page 3 of the results, “our” Payr shows up: hellopayr.com. Modern, uncluttered website. Nothing weird so far. According to the footer of the website, the company is registered as Payr Ltd. in London. That is accurate, according to Companies House. Strange, however, that the company was only incorporated on 17 July 2019, when it had operated for six month and facilitated a million pound of payments by April 2019, according to the iPMI article. It must have also been registered/licensed by the Financial Conduct Authority for it to facilitate payments or offer some kind of insurance: no result for Payr, though. In the iPMI article, Xavier Durand is credited as the CEO of Payr. Perhaps his involvement can shed some light on the matter. Companies House tells a different story, however. There is and was no Xavier Durand involved as CEO (or other appointed officer) at Payr. “The” Xavier Durand is CEO of Coface, a French credit insurer with thousands of employees and a turnover of more than 1 billion US dollar.
The only person involved as director of Payr, is Christalla Kirkillari. She turns out to be a prominent director of offshore companies and is mentioned in the ICIJ Offshore Leaks database. Yes, the database of the Panama Papers, Paradise Papers, etc. She manages or managed more than 50 offshore companies. While offshore companies are not necessarily illegal, the practice does not help strengthen the fragile credibility of Traveller Assist and Payr. Another, earlier article from iPMI Magazine states that Payr is registered in Luxembourg as Payr Financial Services Inc. (and should now be the parent company of Traveller Assist). The Luxembourg Business Registers are not familiar with Payr, though (and an “Incorporated” is not a entity type under Luxembourg law).
TL;DR and where to go from here
The background of the bunq incident is unclear, as there is no local news coverage, nor any knowledge of the incident at the Dutch embassy. The motive is shaky, as the rainbow colours are not associated with the LGBTQ community in India that strongly and there is doubt whether you could even pay with a bunq card in Lucknow. The timing, just a few days after Pride Amsterdam, is impeccable.
There is no source for the bunq incident, except Traveller Assist, a “globally operating” traveller assistance company with two employees, a massive smokescreen and an investigation by Nepali authorities at hand. Every news article that I could find, contained lies. The Kathmandu Post uncovered the fake news story that Traveller Assist put up, and found out that none of the insurance companies Traveller Assist claimed to work for were actually conducting business with Traveller Assist.
Its parent company (at least, that is what Traveller Assist claims in one of the iPMI articles) is managed by an offshore director that was involved with over 50 companies mentioned in the Panama Papers and other leaks, and lied about its CEO. It presents itself as a payment service provider, but has obtained no license from the authorities.
It scares me that none of the large Dutch news outlets that covered the incident, such as NRC and Parool, did any background check on the story. I hope that the news outlets become aware of this story. Until then, feel free to dig up any information on the companies and people involved and relay it to the media (or authorities, in case of criminal implications).
Last, but not least, the question is what the exact involvement of bunq is. Does it know the people behind Traveller Assist? Did it buy a fake story? How would Traveller Assist profit from this if it were not acting on behalf of bunq? The Dutch challenger bank should certainly clear things up.
