Commercial banks in the country have now cleared 95% of the debt owed to telecom operators for Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) services.
The Chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) Engr. Gbenga Adebayo disclosed this on Thursday during a virtual chat with the media on the migration to end-user billing for USSD services.
According to Adebayo, the debt, which stood at about N180 billion as of January this year, has now been cleared up to 95%, with only three banks left to pay up their debt.
Migration to end-user billing
Adebayo said this paved the way for the migration to the end-user billing, as payment of the debt was one of the conditions for the migration.
- The ALTON Chairman noted that the three remaining banks had negotiated for instalment payment, and they now have the last instalment to be paid.
- Adebayo emphasized that the end-user billing means customer charges for USSD services will now be deducted from mobile airtime instead of a bank account.
- According to him, one of the major banks in the country has been successfully migrated to the system with initial positive trial results, while others are in the process of being migrated.
- He, however, noted that the migration is not compulsory, as some banks may choose to remain on the old corporate billing system.
“Those who may not want to migrate to the new method can continue to use corporate billing as long far they have paid all their debt and they will not owe telecom operators as they are deducting the money from their customers,” Adebayo said.
The ALTON Chairman also assured that the telecom operators will, on their part, do everything to ensure that the transactions are seamless, but noted that failure of transactions could come from the banks.
“If there’s a failure from the network, the customer will not be billed, but if it’s from the bank, they will be billed because it is successful from the operator’s side.
“I must also clarify that if people see a deduction from their bank account after they have been charged for their airtime, they should go to the bank because the bank is not supposed to charge them for the service, that is double billing,” he said.
Impact on customers
Responding to a question on how the end-user billing will impact the bank customers and telecom subscribers, the Chief Enterprise Business Officer, MTN Nigeria, Lynda Saint-Nwafor, said there is no significant impact or change aside from the fact that they will now pay through airtime instead of their bank account.
Customers will be paying the same N6.98 per session (120 seconds), which they have been paying before now, but through their airtime.
She said the telecom operators are keen on transparency in the whole process, and they have also been mandated by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to provide monthly performance statistics and standardized error messaging for USSD transactions.
Backstory
The telecom operators had on Wednesday, June 18, announced the commencement of the end-user billing in line with a new directive from the NCC.
- According to ALTON, the migration to end-user billing follows the Determination of USSD Pricing and Services issued by the NCC, which was developed in collaboration with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and other key stakeholders.
- ALTON said the migration aims to create a more sustainable, transparent, and customer-friendly framework for delivering USSD services, especially in Nigeria’s growing digital financial landscape.
