One 97 Communications, a fintech solutions provider that operates popular payments platform Paytm, has dismissed reports that its bank accounts were frozen following a recent Enforcement Directorate (ED) raid related to a Chinese lending app case.
“As noted in our exchange filing, the ED has directed us to freeze a certain amount of MID from certain trading entities, none of which belong to Paytm or our group of companies,” Paytm tweeted.
Earlier on Friday, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) was said to have found and frozen Rs 4,667 crore in various bank accounts and virtual accounts owned by Easebuzz, Razorpay, Cashfree and Paytm.
Earlier, the Education Department conducted raids on six premises in Bengaluru to investigate so-called Chinese credit application cases. The raids were carried out under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) of 2002.
The ED said the premises of Razorpay, Cashfree Payments, Paytm payment services and companies “controlled” by the Chinese were all included in the search.
“As part of an ongoing investigation of a specific group of merchants, ED has obtained information about merchants to whom we provide payment processing solutions. This is to clarify that these traders are independent companies and none of them are part of our group of companies.” Paytm This was previously clarified through regulatory filings with the exchange.
“We are and will continue to cooperate fully with the authorities and all policy measures are being properly followed,” she added.
During the search, the ED noted that the companies searched generated criminal proceeds through various merchant IDs and accounts at payment gateways and banks, and did not operate from the addresses or registered addresses provided on the Department of Corporate Affairs website, and used false addresses .