Mobile telecommunication companies in Nigeria have gotten approval from the regulatory body, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to disconnect Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) in the country over over N120 billion USSD debt.
In 2022, the mobile telecom operators under the auspices of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) threatened to stop providing Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) services to the banks over N80 billion debt.
This issue between the deposit money banks (DMOs) and the mobile operators has been lingering for the past four years.
USSD technology is one of the easiest ways of delivering mobile financial services to low-income customers. It does not use data. All a customer needs to do is dial a number (shortcode) that starts with * and ends with #. Mobile operators provide this USSD platform to banks so as to provide banking services to the banking customers. Bank customers use this SMS-based service to access financial services like transfers, bill payments, airtime recharges, etc.
In 2021, the Federal government had to intervene to stop the telcos as they had concluded plans to suspend USSD services.
In a statement on Friday, the mobile operators said they got the approval from NCC and they now have the authority to disconnect any erring bank.
This means that for erring banks, they will not be able to offer USSD-based services and this will, in turn, affect customers who try to use these services
