The government asks the police to de-freeze Qcoom's payment settlement account to pay back the stuck-up funds to its affected clients, officials say.
The Criminal Investigation Department (CID), the apex investigation unit of the Bangladesh Police, earlier froze the account of the online marketplace temporally.
To pay back, the central digital commerce cell (CDCC) under commerce ministry has sent a letter to the department to take necessary action.
In late December, a high-level meeting decided through a joint resolution to refund the costumers of the controversial portal.
Representatives from different agencies, including law ministry, central bank, the police, Qcoom and Foster Payments, were present in the meeting.
It also instructed Qcoom and Foster to submit a detailed list of the affected customers by January 10.
Accordingly, Qcoom and Foster jointly submitted a partial list.
Later, the CDCC extended the deadline to submit the list by January 16. Yet, they failed to submit it.
They only gave a list of 6,721 clients involving over Tk 590 million out of the total Tk 1.65-billion funds that remain stashed with Foster.
After receiving the partial list, the CDCC head has convened an urgent virtual meeting with e-Commerce Association of Bangladesh (e-CAB), Qcoom and Foster.
It has been decided to pay back the money to the clients of the company, according to the letter.
The CDCC has recently instructed the Bangladesh Bank to take necessary measure to pay back the amount at the shortest possible time as per the list.
More than Tk 2.14 billion got stuck with different service-providing firms, including SSL, shurjoMukhi, Foster, bKash, Nagad and Southeast Bank.
Of the funds, over Tk 1.65 billion of Qcoom remains stuck with Foster and Tk 485 million with other payment gateways, according to a central bank letter.
