N42bn debt: banks’ USSD services face disconnection by Telcos

The Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria say telcos will disconnect Financial Service Providers from Unstructured Supplementary Service Data services from March 15 until they pay their over N42bn debt.

In a statement signed by ALTON and Chairman, Gbenga Adebayo, and Head of Operations, Gbolahan Awonuga.

ALTON explained that it became necessary to withdraw services due to the lack of agreement on a payment structure with the banks that did not involve the end-user being asked to pay.

It noted that following the issuance of the USSD pricing determination by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) which resulted in a price review of USSD service by the telcos, the banks decided that they would no longer pay for USSD service delivered to their customers and requested the telcos to charge customers directly for use of the USSD channel.

Meanwhile, the telcos complained that the banks, however, provided no assurances that such service fees charged to customers’ bank accounts for access to bank services through the USSD channel would be discontinued post implementation of end-user billing by the telcos.

The telecom operators said this was in consideration of millions of Nigerians who had become more reliant on accessing financial services through the USSD infrastructure due to COVID movement restrictions.