Sources from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) have debunked a recent announcement by banks that the deduction of charges for the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) from customers’ airtime, otherwise known as end-user billing, commenced on June 3.
According to NCC officials, who would not want to be named because they were not authorised to speak, the banks and the telecom operators are still firming up things and testing the process, and no time has been fixed yet for the commencement.
“The technical integration and end-to-end testing are still being worked on, after which they will be communicated by respective banks to their customers on the commencement date, which has yet to be determined,” one of the sources told Nairametrics.
Banks’ announcement
Earlier this month, some banks, including UBA and FCMB, announced that charges for USSD transactions would be deducted from airtime instead of their bank accounts starting from June 3, 2025.
The banks claimed the change was a directive from the telecom regulator, NCC.
“In line with the directive of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), please be informed that effective June 3, 2025, charges for USSD banking services will no longer be deducted from your bank account,” one of the banks said in a notice sent to its customers on June 3.
“Going forward, these charges will be deducted directly from your mobile airtime balance in accordance with the NCC’s End-User Billing (EUB) model,” it added.
Telcos disagree with banks
Meanwhile, telecom operators have also expressed their displeasure with the notice issued by the banks, describing it as a gross misinformation deliberately hatched “to suit their selfish interests.”
“I don’t understand why the banks are twisting agreements and distorting information just to favour their selfish interests. In the first place, the information wasn’t a directive from the NCC but a joint regulatory agreement between the NCC and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN witnessed by the telcos and the banks,” said the Chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecom Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), Engr. Gbenga Adebayo.
“The agreement was that if the banks finally cleared all USSD debts owed to the telcos by June 2, 2025, they are free to migrate to the end-user billing method, so long as the model of migration is transparent and agreed upon by the telcos,” he added.
According to him, the reason for that clause was because the telcos insisted that the process of migration is such that will not allow a customer to be billed twice; in other words, that a subscriber would not have his airtime deducted and also have his or her money deducted for same services from his or her bank account.
“As we speak, some of the banks have cleared their debts, but the majority are yet to do so. So, even if all the modalities of migrating to end-user billing have been perfectly carried out, the implementation cannot even begin because the banks are yet to clear the USSD debt owed to the telcos,” Adebayo added.
What you should know
Nigerian banks and telcos have been having a running battle over USSD debt as the former often fail to remit to the latter after deducting from customers’ accounts.
- To resolve the matter, in December 2024, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the NCC directed mobile network operators (MNOs) and DMBs to resolve the long-standing N250 billion USSD debt.
- Following threats by telcos to withdraw services over the debt accumulated by banks, the NCC, in January, threatened to suspend the USSD service and publish a list of banks still owing telcos.
- On January 15, the regulator directed telcos to disconnect the USSD codes assigned to nine banks by January 27 due to unpaid debts.
- On February 28, MTN Nigeria said it received N32 billion out of N72 billion from banks as part of payment for the USSD debt.
