Commerce ministry moves to refund customers   

The commerce ministry is going to take initiatives to refund customers of e-commerce companies who have their money stuck in different payment gateways.

The customers of the companies that have no cases filed against them will be refunded on a priority basis.

The ministry has asked the police headquarters to provide it within seven days with information on the cases lodged against e-commerce companies.

Based on that, the Bangladesh Bank would instruct payment gateways to refund customers, said AHM Safiquzzaman, additional secretary of the commerce ministry and director general of the Digital Commerce Cell, on Tuesday. He was speaking at a press briefing at the Secretariat after a meeting of the high-level committee on digital commerce.

The meeting discussed two matters – releasing money of the e-commerce companies that have no lawsuits against them and launching of the unique business ID (UBID).

Safiquzzaman said a letter would be sent to the police headquarters, asking them to collect information on cases against e-commerce firms from the law enforcement agencies, including the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), the Special Branch (SB), and the Detective Branch (DB), and send it to the ministry within seven days.

“The money of the companies that will not be on the list will be released. We hope to refund those who have their money stuck in payment gateways, but we are concerned about this,” he said.

“After receiving the list from the police headquarters, the payment gateway operators will start releasing the money via the Bangladesh Bank. The Bangladesh Bank will give refund instructions. Customers who did not receive products will get refunds,” he added.

Safiquzzaman, also the convener of the high-level committee on digital commerce, said there had been notable progress in making refunds, but complexities arose over identifying which companies had been sued.

“This information will be collected from the police headquarters. After that, the information will be given to the Bangladesh Bank to take steps to release the money.”

The commerce ministry’s additional secretary also said an app was being developed for building a central logistic tracking platform (CLTP).

He said plans were being made to manage the logistics centrally through the postal department because there are now many private operators.

“Product delivery workers are working in Dhaka, but this is a big challenge outside the capital. In this case, it will be handled centrally by the postal department apart from private operators.”

Safiquzzaman further said, “UBID needs technical testing. It is in the testing phase now. It will be completed and officially launched next month.”

According to the central bank, e-commerce customers had paid more than Tk 505 crore through the third-party payment gateways between June 30 and October 14. The central bank launched the cash on delivery service on June 30.

The gateways released Tk 291 crore to the sellers while Tk 214 crore is still stuck. 

Of the Tk 214 crore, Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit froze Tk 166 crore of e-commerce firm Qcoom at the request of police. Qcoom’s payment gateway Foster cannot refund the money until the CID issues an unlock order. 

Apart from Foster, another Tk 48 crore is stuck at SSL, shurjoMukhi, bKash, Nagad, and Southeast Bank.