Take steps to release Qcoom’s Tk440cr

The Commerce Ministry wrote to the central bank on Tuesday to take steps on releasing funds stuck in a payment gateway company for two and a half months against the products delivered to the customers.

The suggestion comes in response to a letter sent by Qcoom, an online shopping platform, to the ministry seeking government intervention to release the funds.

Qcoom has Tk 440 crore stuck in Foster Payments, a payment gateway service provider, said Qcoom Managing Director Ripon Mia in the letter.   

“We submitted the invoices to the payment gateway company but they are not paying the money. The company contacted few customers. Even after two and a half months, it did not release the money funds. We can’t deliver the goods on time to customers as the funds remained stuck,” he said.

Like Qcoom, some other online shipping platforms also filed similar complaints with the relevant agencies, saying they are not getting the money from the gateways even after delivering products.

A payment gateway is a technology used by merchants to accept purchases from customers by debit or credit card or with mobile money.
The payment gateway works as a medium for the clearance of the payment between the customers and the providers of services or products, or for other transactions.

“We’re trying to solve the problem legally to ensure the payment. The ministry wrote to the central bank to solve the issue,” said Md Hafizur Rahman, head of the digital commerce cell of the commerce ministry. 

Amid a horde of allegations against some e-commerce firms, such as Evaly and Eorange, over their failure to deliver products and pay the suppliers,
the commerce ministry in early July issued guidelines for digital commerce companies.

The ministry decided to hold payments made by customers to local e-commerce platforms until consumers receive the purchased goods.

The development followed rising allegations against a number of digital commerce platforms that
they were not delivering goods timely or delaying too much against advance payments made by consumers for the products.