He is the latest Wirecard victim. Stefan Klestil, 53, the son of the former Austrian president, is the Lead Partner FinTech at the Austrian VC SpeedInvest. Now Klestil is catching up on his past as a member of the Supervisory Board of Wirecard and close business partner of its founder and CEO Markus Braun. He allegedly has to withdraw from the supervisory board of the German FinTech start-up N26 under pressure from BaFin.
Like Wirecard founder and CEO Markus Braun, the two N26 founders Valentin Stalf and Maximilian Tayenthal are also Austrian. The proximity to Klestil and SpeedInvest is therefore obvious. It is said to have been Klestil who brought SpeedInvest to invest in N26. The FinTech does indeed have its own Wirecard-related past. Initially, N26 started operations within the licensing umbrella provided by Wirecard. In July 2016, it re-branded as N26 Bank, having received its own banking license from BaFin.
Since 2009, Stefan Klestil had been a member of the Wirecard Supervisory Board, where he did not leave until August 31, 2020. According to his LinkedIn profile, he joined the N26 Advisory Board in 2013 already and apparently brought it to SpeedInvest he joined in Oct 2014.
According to a report in the Handelsblatt, Klestil was now also forced to withdraw from N26 under pressure from BaFin. This is only consequent because a long-standing Supervisory Board that does not want to have noticed the apparently gigantic fraud scheme that has been operating for years is not really an acceptable Supervisory Board.
