Business Desk :
The Ministry of Commerce 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.
AHM Shafiquzzaman, additional secretary to the Commerce Ministry and chief of the Digital Commerce Cell said this at a press briefing following a meeting of the cell with other ministry officials, regulators, and stakeholders on Monday.
The secretary also said that they are hopeful that the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) will work on unfreezing the relevant accounts of platforms that were frozen on the basis of not delivering products against advance payments.
The Commerce Ministry has written to the CID in this regard to take steps in disbursing the Tk214 crore funds that have been stuck in payment gateways following the introduction of the escrow system.
The central bank introduced the escrow service in July this year 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.
In an escrow payment service, money paid by customers gets deposited with third-party payment gateways, who withhold the amount until the e-commerce firms submit supporting documents proving that the goods have been delivered.
Many customers say that they neither got the products nor the money they paid for the undelivered goods.
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, the association says.
