Financial Technologies cracks 14% as Deloitte withdraws audit report

NEW DELHI: Financial Technologies Ltd plunged as much as 14.4 per cent in morning trade on Wednesday, a day after its auditor Deloitte Haskins and Sells withdrew its audit report saying that the company's standalone and consolidated results are not to be relied upon.

At 09:20 a.m.; FT recouped some of the losses and was trading 7.3 per cent lower at Rs 155.20. It has hit a low of Rs 143.25 and a high of Rs 156 in trade today.

Financial Technologies (FT) is the promoter of the National Spot Exchange ( NSEL) which defaulted on Rs 5,500 crore of payments to investors.

Shares in Multi Commodity Exchange of India, another FT-promoted entity was trading 3.4 per cent lower at Rs 422. It has hit a low of Rs 416 and a high of Rs 430.60 in trade today.

On Tuesday, FT informed the BSE that it has postponed its shareholders' vote on adoption of the company's balance sheet and profit and loss accounts for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2013.

FT has also put on hold the ratification of payment of interim and final dividend to shareholders and re-appointment of Deloitte as its auditor, ET reported.

A source close to Deloitte told ET that said NSEL auditor's decision to withdraw its report prompted them to do the same on FT. In FY12, an affiliate of Ernst & Young was the auditor to NSEL and Mukesh P Shah audited it in FY13.

FT said that Deloitte had to withdraw its report as the auditors of NSEL withdrew their report on September 21. The audit report was signed before NSEL payment crisis broke out. NSEL's revenues are regrouped in the FT's balance sheet.

After the NSEL crisis broke out, FT, in August, used $107 million from its accounts to prepay its foreign currency and ECB loans and fund the working capital needs of its overseas ventures, added the ET report.