Customers may not be able to use the Unstructured Supplementary Services Data (USSD) banking service to complete their financial transactions if urgent steps are not taken to pacify the telecommunications operators in Nigeria.
This is because the telcos, under the aegis of the Association of Licensed Telecom Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), are furious at the banks for allegedly misinforming their customers on how they would be charged for completing their financial transactions via the USSD codes.
Recall that on Tuesday, June 3, 2025, the financial institutions informed their customers that from that day, USSD charges would be from airtime balance and not from their bank accounts.
The lenders claimed this was a directive of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and was part of the efforts to address the USSD debt crisis between them and the telcos some months ago.
“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.
“Going forward, these charges will be deducted directly from your mobile airtime balance in accordance with the NCC’s End-User Billing (EUB) model.
“Under this new billing structure, each USSD session will attract a charge of N6.98 per 120 seconds, which will be billed by your mobile network operator.
“You will receive a consent prompt at the start of each session, and airtime will only be deducted upon your confirmation and availability of the bank to fulfil this service.
“If you do not wish to continue using USSD banking under this new model, you may choose to discontinue use of the USSD channel,” the message from the banks to customers stated.
But reacting to this, the chairman of ALTON Mr Gbenga Adebayo, said the information was not accurate, noting that his members may be forced to withdraw their services.
“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. The agreement was that if the banks finally cleared all USSD debts owed 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 by the telcos.
“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.
“Our position now is that if that is the way the banks want to treat the agreement, we may withdraw support for their USSD services. It is not a must have. They can do without it. But, they should clear the debts as agreed,” he told Vanguard.