The mobile telecom operators under the auspices of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) have threatened to stop providing Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) services to the banks over N80 billion debt.
This was reiterated by the Chairman of the body, Gbenga Adebayo, who made this known in a recent interview with Thisday Newspapers.
According to him, “The debt is rising and has not been paid by the banks. As of November 2022, the accumulated debt rose to over N80 billion. When we started the argument in 2019, it was N32 billion, and they continue to claim that they are not owing, but our investigation shows that they are still using the USSD platform to offer banking services to their customers, yet they are not remitting to telecom operators who own the USSD platform.”
“Time will soon come when we will be constrained to withdraw the service and many bank customers that depend on the USSD service will suffer for it and it will affect the economy. It is honourable to pay their debts and they have to pay,” Adebayo added.
“We are warning that the banks’ action in refusing to pay their debt, will have negative consequence on the CBN’s cashless economy agenda for the country. It will be a threat to cashless economy. So, CBN should advise money deposit banks to pay up the accumulated debts.”
This issue between the deposit money banks (DMOs) and the mobile operators has been lingering for the past three 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.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) thereafter imposed a new charge for mobile banking services in the country, in a bid to end the row between banks and telecoms operators.
