Start giving refunds to e-commerce clients

Bangladesh Bank has asked electronic payment gateways to start paying back money to the customers who did not get delivery of products from the rogue e-commerce platforms despite making advance payments.

The central bank sent letters to six payment gateways -- Nagad, Software Shop, Surjomukhi Ltd, Foster Corporation Ltd, bKash and Southeast Bank -- on Wednesday that suggested them to refund the customers of those digital commerce platforms, against which there are no cases under trial in the court.

Under the circumstances, a good number of customers are likely to have to wait for a longer period of time as there are cases in the courts against officials of certain e-commerce platforms, namely Evaly, Dhamaka shopping, e-orange, Sirajganj shop and Qcoom.

As such, the refund of a large chunk of the advance payments of Tk 512 crore stuck at the payment gateways are likely to remain stuck for more days to come.

The Bangladesh Bank move comes several days after the commerce ministry recommended refunding the advance payments made by customers to the e-commerce firms.

In its directive, the central bank also asked payment gateways to properly examine information of buyers before giving the refunds.

"We have received the letter from the regulator and have started working duly considering customers as the top priority," said Muhammad Zahidul Islam, head of communication at Nagad.

He said Nagad also returned a good amount of customers' money in recent times even before the directive.

He said as there are legal issues related to some e-commerce platforms, Nagad will begin to refund the customers after sorting out the number of eligible customers through proper scrutiny.

Shamsuddin Haider Dalim, a spokesperson of bKash, said the mobile financial service provider would take steps to refund the money as per the Bangladesh Bank guideline.

The government formed a 15-member panel in October this year in order to take steps to recover money from the controversial e-commerce companies after complaints flooded in against the online shops for non-delivery of products despite receiving advance payments.