Banks Owe Telecommunication Companies Over N17b in Unpaid USSD Service

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has said financial institutions offering Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) service owe telecommunication companies over N17 billion.

Prof. Umar Danbatta, the Executive Vice Chairman, NCC, disclosed this on Thursday at a virtual forum organised by the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON).

In the forum titled ‘Meeting the interests of government, consumers and telecoms companies in the era of Covid-19 and post COVID-19 pandemic for digital economy development’, Danbatta said the debt accumulated after the commission suspended its determination on USSD pricing in 2019.

However, the Chairman said in order to protect the interest of consumers and support the growing telecommunications sector, the commission has decided to revise the 2019 determination on USSD.

Speaking on the suspension of end-user billings Dr. Isa Pantami, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, said the decision was to ease customers’ burden and ensure justice across the board.

He said, “USSD is a service to banks and not telecoms consumers, and as such, banks should see themselves as corporate customers of telecoms operators with a duty to pay for using the telecoms networks and infrastructure, including USSD channels extended to them for service delivery to their customers.”

According to him, “Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) have no direct relationship with bank customers, and cannot therefore charge directly for usage of USSD channel,” he explained.

The NCC, therefore, asked Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) and financial institutions offering USSD service to reach an agreement on a rate that works for both parties.