Jio Financial Planning to Buy Paytm? Look What JFSL Has to Say About This

Jio Financial denies the rumors about them buying Paytm. Whereas Paytm denies the allegations of being investigated for money laundering or forex regulations.

Written by: Supriya Kadu

Edited by: Krutarth Ghosalkar

Last Updated: February 06, 2024

Summary: Jio Financial denies the rumors about them buying Paytm. Whereas Paytm denies the allegations of being investigated for money laundering or forex regulations.

Jio Financial Services (JFSL) a part of Reliance Industries has denied the rumors that they are in talks with One97 Communication to buy Paytm. JSFL stated, “We clarify that the news item is speculative and we have not been in any negotiations in this matter.” They further said, “We have always made and will always make disclosures in compliance with our obligations under the SEBI (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) Regulation, 2015.”

BSE (Bombay Stock Exchange) asked Jio Financial Services to speak on this matter that is being posted in the report of Hindustan Times, which stated NBSC is in talks with One 97 to buy Paytm. The same was asked to Paytm as well, but the reply is still awaited.

Earlier the reports stated that Jio has been in talks to buy Paytm since last November, while HDFC was also in talks just ahead of the RBI’s ban on Paytm Payments Bank. The reports also stated that Jio Financial might also buy the Paytm Payment Banks.

Since the RBI has imposed a ban on Paytm Payment Banks for providing all sorts of banking services for non-compliance, the shares of Paytm have been in a free fall ever since. They Paytm shares declined by 42% in just 3 days and wrecked around ₹20,500 crore of investor’s wealth. On monday Paytm witnessed its all-time low at ₹438.35.

Paytm is believed to be involved in some money laundering cases and violating the KYC (Know-your-customer), consideration is taken to cancel the banking license of Paytm.

RBI found out that the KYC documents of thousands of customers are missing and also the individual accounts that had past issues with abnormal balance and enforcement agencies. They also came to know about the instances where one single account number is used to create more than 1000 accounts on Paytm.

The security agencies are looking for the entity that has been helping with the money laundering cases. But they have found none till now. Although Paytm has denied the allegation of being investigated by the ED for money laundering charges or forex regulations.

Paytm gave a statement saying, “We would like to reiterate that the company and its associate Paytm Payments Bank limited are not the subject matter of any such investigation. These medic reports are entirely baseless, misleading, and malicious, which may harm the interest of our stockholders.”