Dhaka – The Dutch Bangla Bank Limited (DBBL) has suspended credit, debit, and pre-paid card transactions at 10 online e-commerce, including Evaly and Alesha Mart.
Earlier, Prime Bank, Mutual Trust Bank (MTB), BRAC Bank, Bank Asia, and Dhaka Bank also enforced similar bans. Besides, UCB and Citibank have also warned their customers about these online merchant transactions.
The banned companies are Evaly, Alesha Mart, E-Orange, Dhamaka Shopping, Sirajganj Shopping, Aladdin's Lamp, Boom Boom, Cucom, Adian Mart, and Needs.com BD.
On Sunday, Dutch Bangla Bank temporarily suspended credit, debit, and pre-paid card transactions with these 10 online merchants.
The Call center of Dutch Bangla Bank has confirmed the matter to Dhaka Post. Prime Bank on Saturday (June 27) and MTB and Dhaka Bank on Thursday (June 24) issued similar instructions.
Earlier on Wednesday (June 23), a message sent to Bank Asia customers said, “Some local e-commerce transactions on Bank Asia cards have been temporarily suspended due to technical reasons.”
On the same day, United Commercial Bank Limited (UCB) and Citibank also warned their customers about possible fraud. UCB said in a message to its customers on Wednesday that UCB would not be liable for disputes over transactions with online merchants in e-commerce transactions with UCB cards.
First, last Tuesday (June 22), BRAC Bank suspended transactions with 10 e-commerce companies, including Evaly and Alesha Mart. Ekramul Kabir, chief public relations officer of BRAC Bank, told that this is a strategic decision of BRAC Bank.
Our board of directors determines which organization we will partner with. They have decided to suspend transactions on these sites for the time being.
Several e-commerce companies are adopting new business strategies. In this new business system, online markets collect a few months' advances from buyers. In some cases companies take longer to deliver the product, he added.
In addition, they often inform buyers that their ordered products have run out. And so, it is not possible to send it.
However, after months of waiting, there are numerous complaints that buyers do not get their money back if companies fail to deliver the product.
Bangladesh Bank is also concerned about raising huge sums of money from e-commerce companies of the country by trapping all the lucrative discounts of online shoppers.
Bangladesh Bank(BB) has recently sent an investigative report to the Ministry of Commerce regarding high transactions through these unregulated e-commerce sites. They said that these institutions have no assets against the advance money collected from the buyers.
According to an inspection by Bangladesh Bank (BB), the current assets of the online-based commercial organization (e-commerce) Evaly is 65 crore 17 lakh taka. In contrast, the debt of the company stands at Tk403 crore 80 lakh.
The company does not have the capacity to repay these debts more than 6 times its assets.
