Another E-Commerce Fix?
Bangladesh wants a new authority to stop online shopping scams. But similar promises failed twice before.
In a Nutshell
- Commerce Minister Khandaker Abdul Muktadir told Parliament the government is thinking about a new e-commerce authority.
- He was answering a question from opposition MP M Rashedul Islam Rashed in Parliament.
- People have filed 58,720 fraud complaints against firms like E-valley, E-Orange, Q-com, Dhamaka-shopping, and Alisha Mart.
- These complaints total nearly Taka 3,869 crore.
- The government has recovered Taka 531 crore and paid Taka 472 crore back to victims.
Context
Online shopping grew fast in Bangladesh during and after COVID-19. But weak regulations and loopholes allow scams like Evaly and E-Orange to trick people. Till 2022, no single office checked or registered online shops. Now, RJSC has registered 1,902 companies. Just weeks ago, Bangladesh Bank froze accounts linked to a new Ponzi scheme.
Why It Matters
This plan matters because Bangladesh’s e-commerce sector is large, fast-growing, and barely tracked. e-CAB counts over 2,500 formal platforms, 250,000 active sellers, and 50,000-plus Facebook pages selling goods, yet RJSC has formally registered only 1,902 companies, showing a huge gap between real activity and official oversight. The market itself is valued anywhere between Taka 66,000 crore and Taka 1.5 lakh crore, depending on the source, reflecting how poorly this industry is currently measured.
Online fraud has hurt millions of ordinary people. About 1 crore people have lost more than 2.2 lakh crore Taka to MLM scams since old cases like Jubok and Destiny. If fraud keeps happening, people will stop trusting online shopping altogether, which hurts small honest sellers too. This is also a political test, since an opposition MP forced the minister to answer in Parliament.
Right now, four different offices share this job, but none fully owns it: the Directorate of National Consumers’ Right Protection (DNCRP), which handles consumer complaints, the Registrar of Joint Stock Companies and Firms (RJSC), which registers companies, the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC), which oversees telecom and internet platforms, and Bangladesh Bank, which watches money flows. Earlier plans for a similar authority in 2018 and 2023 both failed after business groups pushed back.
What We Think
This is the third time the government has floated this same idea, first in 2018, then in 2023, both of which dropped. The pattern suggests it is easier to announce a fix than to build one. Registration alone has not stopped fraud before; e-CAB warned about Evaly back in 2019, but the ministry ignored it and even promoted the company.
So the real gap is not just missing laws but a habit of not acting on warnings. Business groups have long opposed a new authority, saying it slows down small sellers while doing little to catch big scammers. That tension, protecting buyers versus protecting small traders, remains unresolved. The bigger question is not whether Bangladesh needs oversight, but whether its institutions can actually enforce it once it exists.