Telecommunications operators in Nigeria have issued a disconnection notice to Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) over N120 billion Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) debt.
A statement signed by the Chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), Gbenga Adebayo, said the notice followed approval granted by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to disconnect banks after multi-party stakeholder efforts to resolve the situation failed.
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Adebayo said Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) including MTN, Glo, Airtel, and 9mobile, would disconnect banks if they failed to pay the debt owed.
According to him, members of the public would recall that MNOs and banks had protracted disagreements concerning the appropriate USSD pricing model for financial transactions, transparency of charges, mode of collection and liability for payment of the outstanding and continuous service fees due to the MNOs.
“Due to the inability of MNOs and banks to reach an agreement on the issues, MNOs sought to disconnect banks due to the unpaid debts, which stood at N42 billion in 2021, and have now risen to over N120 billion,” he said.
Adebayo noted that it was pertinent to note that the contract between MNOs and banks on the use of USSDs for banking transactions was strictly commercial and MNOs were at liberty to withdraw the services if the transaction was unprofitable to them.
He also explained that MNOs have invested billions of naira in expanding their systems to accommodate the USSD needs of banks over the years.
Adebayo said serving the banks’ notices is part of the withdrawal process. “We have not disconnected yet, but notices have been given to the banks.
“The duration of this notice is dependent on the terms of the agreement with the operators. Disconnection is a function of if they respond with payment. If they respond with payment, we won’t see disconnections. If they don’t, we would start disconnections over the next days or weeks or months,” Adebayo told Punch.