Dhaka — The Mutual Trust Bank (MTB) has suspended credit, debit, and prepaid card transactions at 10 e-commerce websites, including Evaly and Alesha Mart.
Earlier, BRAC Bank, Bank Asia, and Dhaka Bank issued similar bans. Besides, UCB and City bank has 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.
Credit, debit, and pre-paid card transactions with these 10 online e-commerce websites have been temporarily suspended by MTB in a directive on Thursday (June 24). Details in this regard can be found on 16219.
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.
The 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, on 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.
In addition, they often inform buyers that their ordered products have run out. And it is not possible to send it.
However, after months of waiting, the companies failed to deliver the products and there are numerous complaints that the buyers do not get their money back. 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 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 a visit by Bangladesh Bank, the current assets of the online-based commercial organization (e-commerce) Evaly is 65 crores 17 lakh taka. In contrast, the debt of the company stands at 403 crores 80 lakh taka. The company does not have the capacity to repay these debts more than 6 times its assets.
