Telcos to Disconnect Nine Banks by January 27 over N160bn USSD Debt

Emma Okonji

Telecom operators (Telcos) would from Monday, January 27, disconnect nine banks from having access to its Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) code over their failure to pay the USSD services debts, which accumulated to over N200 billion as of October 2024.

The accumulated sum however dropped to over N160 billion as of November 2024, after some banks paid off their debts.

The nine banks included Fidelity Bank, First City Monument Bank (FCMB), Jaiz Bank, Polaris Bank, Sterling Bank, United Bank for Africa (UBA), Unity Bank, Wema Bank and Zenith Bank.

The decision to disconnect the indebted banks from having access to the USSD code was sequel to an approval given by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), to all telecoms operators to withdraw the USSD services on January 27.

The NCC yesterday issued a public notice of approval to the telecoms companies to withdraw the USSD services from the nine banks still indebted to the telecoms operators.

Going by the NCC’s approval, all customers of the nine banks would not be able to access the USSD code for financial transactions from January 27, a development that may compel the affected banks’ customers to switch their banking services to other banks, to enable them to continue using the USSD code for their banking transactions.

According to the public notice issued by NCC and signed by its Director, Public Affairs, Mr. Reuben Muoka, “The NCC hereby notifies members of the public that it has granted approval to telecoms companies to disconnect USSD codes assigned by the commission to financial institutions that are indebted to the telecoms companies, if such institutions do not settle the outstanding invoices by Monday, January 27, 2025.

“NCC will therefore recover such codes and may reassign them to other applicants in accordance with the applicable instruments. In fulfillment of its consumer protection mandate the commission wishes to inform consumers that they may be unable to access the USSD platform of the affected banks from January 27, 2025.”

According to NCC, of a total of 18 financial institutions, the nine listed failed to comply significantly with the directives of the second joint circular of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the NCC, dated December 20, 2024 for the settlement of outstanding invoices due to telecoms companies since 2019.

The USSD short codes are used by bank customers to conduct banking

Services, which are preferred by some banking customers because they can be used to carry out electronic transactions without the need for a smartphone, and without the data for connectivity.

The USSD debt had been accumulating since September 2019 to date, reaching over N200 billion, but dropped to over N160 billion as at November 2024, after some banks cleared their outstanding debts.

The banks were supposed to remit N6.98 kobo to telecoms operators from the total amount they charge customers for every financial transaction carried out on the USSD platform, but the banks refused to remit any amount since 2019 that the agreement was reached between the banks and the telcos, which accumulated over time.