The Nigerian Communications Fee has accredited telecommunications corporations to disconnect the Unstructured Backup Carrier Knowledge codes assigned to 9 monetary establishments because of unpaid money owed.
This directive was once made in a Tuesday folk understand signed through NCC’s Director of Family Affairs, Reuben Muoka.
The telecom regulator mentioned affected banks will have to decide their remarkable duties through January 27, 2025, or chance shedding get entry to to their USSD codes.
Those codes, very important for enabling cell banking services and products, may well be reassigned to alternative candidates if the money owed stay unresolved.
The fee detectable that, as of Tuesday’s alike of industrial, 9 out of 18 monetary establishments had no longer complied with regulatory directives.
Month alternative banks have cleared their money owed, the full quantity to begin with owed through the monetary establishments was once reported to exceed N200 billion.
Alternatively, the regulator didn’t reveal the correct debt lately owed through the affected banks.
In line with the NCC, one of the unpaid invoices have remained unpaid since 2020, indicating a chronic monetary dispute between the banks and telecom operators.
A part of the attention learn, “By the information made available to the commission as at close of business on Tuesday, 14th January 2025, of a total of 18 financial institutions, the nine institutions listed below have failed to comply significantly with the directives in the Second Joint Circular of the Central Bank of Nigeria and the commission dated December 20, 2024, for the settlement of outstanding invoices due to MNOS, some since 2020.”
The regulator famous that banks’ failure to conform to the CBN-NCC joint round additionally signifies that they’re not able to fulfill the great status necessities for the renewal of the USSD codes assigned to them through the fee.
It added, “In fulfilment of its consumer protection mandate, the commission wishes to inform consumers that they may be unable to access the USSD platform of the affected financial institutions from January 27, 2025.”
The affected monetary establishments come with Constancy Store Plc, First Town Monument Store, Jaiz Store Plc, Polaris Store Restricted, Sterling Store Restricted, United Store for Africa Plc, Harmony Store Plc, Wema Store Plc, and Top Store Plc.
The affected USSD codes come with 770, 919, and 822, amongst others.
The NCC emphasized that the monetary establishments were duly notified of the desire for instant compliance and warned that buyers might face carrier disruptions if the problems stay unresolved.
This construction highlights ongoing tensions between telecommunications corporations and fiscal establishments over unpaid USSD-related money owed, a problem that has continued for years.
In the meantime, information from the CBN detectable that 252.06 million transactions utility N2.19 trillion had been performed by means of USSD between January and June 2024.
This represents an important expansion in comparison to 2023 when 630.6 million transactions valued at N4.84tn had been finished the use of USSD codes.
In the beginning designed through telecom operators for services and products like airtime purchases and subscriptions, USSD has turn into a key device within the banking sector, providing monetary services and products to customers with out requiring an Web connection.