The Commerce Ministry is looking to recover Tk474 crore of funds from the e-commerce sector that has been taken from consumers in advance payments by rogue platforms.
Consumer’s money has been stuck with rogue platforms as well as payment gateways following the introduction of the escrow system in July.
According to the central bank’s data, consumers paid more than Tk505 crore through the payment gateways from June 30 until October 14 of which Tk291 crore was paid out to platforms against deliveries.
The central bank introduced the escrow service to regulate fraudulent e-commerce platforms in response to the allegations brought against them of taking advance payments and not delivering products or giving refunds.
However, due to the escrow system being manually operated, another Tk214 crore of funds is stuck with payment gateways, which could not be reimbursed by the financial service providers unless instructed by the government.
Earlier, the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) had frozen several accounts linked to the rogue e-commerce platforms that had taken their consumers’ money in advance but did not deliver products nor provide refunds.
The Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) froze Tk166 crore of e-commerce firm Qcoom upon the request of the police.
Its payment gateway Foster could not make refunds until instructed by CID.
Additionally, another Tk48 crore has been stuck in SSL, shurjoMukhi, bKash, Nagad and Southeast Bank.
When Dhaka Tribune reached out to several of these platforms, many of them explained that they have been operating as per the guidelines introduced by the government and cannot act on their own going against their regulators-- the central bank.
To this end, the Commerce Ministry has recently sent a letter to the CID to take relevant steps in recovering Tk214 crore of those funds.
Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi earlier on October had also assured of returning the funds through the initiative of the central bank.
On Monday at a press conference, AHM Shafiquzzaman, additional secretary to the commerce ministry and the chief of Digital Commerce Cell (DCC) formed by the ministry said that the ministry was working on recovering another Tk260 crore taka that was taken in advance prior to the introduction of the escrow system.
However, he did not elaborate on the method nor the chronology.
The DCC chief also said three intelligence departments identified 49 e-commerce platforms that have defrauded customers and merchants of thousands of crores of taka.
"There might be more such rogue platforms,” said Shafiquzzaman, without giving any names.
Meanwhile, the Commerce Ministry is thinking of imposing a 1-2% service charge for disbursing the funds worth Tk214 crore of consumers and e-commerce businesses that are stuck with payment gateways according to the DCC chief.
Speaking to Dhaka Tribune, Sahab Uddin Shipon, vice-president of the e-commerce Association of Bangladesh (e-CAB) explained that the Ministry of Commerce will not be charging the service fee.
“The service charge will be charged by payment gateways on disbursing the funds of the customers who had used their services, not the commerce ministry,” said the e-CAB VP.
The central bank on the other hand had reportedly stated that it has been facing numerous issues refunding the funds stuck with payment gateways.
In regards to verification of whether customers had received the products or not the central bank has been facing issues since the operations of several rogue platforms had come to a halt with several former officials switching jobs.
In an escrow payment service, money paid by customers gets deposited with third-party payment gateways, which withholds the amount until the e-commerce firms submit supporting documents proving that the goods have been delivered.
Several e-commerce shops have also been unable to access the advances paid by buyers even after delivering products.
According to the e-Commerce Association of Bangladesh (e-CAB), the main problem is that the escrow system is not automated.
The manual operations have been delaying the distribution of the funds as well as the current issues in the verification system, the association says.