Refunds continue to remain ever elusive for e-commerce customers who were not delivered products against advance payments, with the process facing a new hiccup yesterday.

At a meeting with stakeholders in Bangladesh Secretariat, the central bank sought a list of the customers and merchants, complete with information of payments over which cases have been filed.

Last week Bangladesh Bank had asked six payment gateways to start returning those payments over which there was no legal dispute, an aspect the service providers did not have knowledge of.

"Upon request of the central bank we are sending a letter to the police headquarters today demanding the list," said AHM Shafiquzzaman, additional secretary to the commerce ministry, after the meeting.

Bangladesh Bank officials said the law enforcers were asked to provide it in seven days.

However, while talking to The Daily Star, Shafiquzzaman could not provide a timeline specifying when the subsequent disbursement would come about.

The government in late October had decided to return around Tk 512 crore stuck with escrow services launched by Bangladesh Bank in July in response to a flood of complaints.

Escrow is the use of a third party, which holds an asset or funds before they are transferred from one party to another. The third party holds the funds until both parties have fulfilled their contractual requirements.

Ever since, government bodies have been writing letters to each other seeking opinions and vetting on the repayment issue.

On the return of payments made before July, Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi earlier said owners of some errant e-commerce companies had misappropriated those as the escrow system was not in place then.

The full amount owed to customers and merchants by nearly half a dozen firms, including Evaly, Alesha Mart, Dhamaka and e-Orange, is yet to be known. The figure could be at least Tk 3,000 crore, according to one estimate.

Meanwhile delays also loom over the launch of registrations for Unique Business Identification Number (UBIN).

The registering of e-commerce and f-commerce companies in the country for the UBINs is aimed at ensuring responsible business practices.

The launch was initially scheduled for this month.

But Shafiquzzaman, also chief of the ministry's Digital Commerce Cell which was formed to dedicatedly deal with e-commerce issues, said they would need another month as more homework was needed.