Munich, October 16 (WNM) - Wirecard AG fell the most since February in Frankfurt after a news report said it found repeated questionable accounting practices at the German payments firm.

Wirecard fell as much as 23% in early trading after the Financial Times published internal company documents and correspondence that “appear to indicate a concerted effort to fraudulently inflate sales and profits” at businesses in Dubai and Ireland, Bloomberg reports.

The company claims the article to be false and stated: "Wirecard categorically rejects these allegations of impropriety. Today's article by the Financial Times is a compilation of a number of false and misleading allegations, which Dan McCrum had raised before in a series of defamatory articles, and which were already fully refuted before. It is regrettable that the Financial Times should still choose to publish such an irresponsible article, particularly in circumstances where we have provided to the FT, via its lawyers, prima facie evidence of collusion with short sellers which casts doubt upon its motivation in publishing its articles."

The FT’s latest investigation focuses on Dubai-based Al Alam Solutions, a Wirecard partner company that, according to the report, contributed half of the company’s profits in 2016. The newspaper has published documents that, according to the FT, are showing that Al Alam processed hundreds of millions of dollars in payments for Wirecard clients in 2016 and 2017.

However, Reuters Breaking Views seems to see some merit in the FT coverage: "Wirecard is becoming uninvestable", the analysts write, as tehy see some problems for long term investors due to the reputation issue the allegations are stating.