By Charles Ebi
Nigerian Commission has approved telecommunications companies comprising MTN, Airtel, Globacom, and 9mobile, to disconnect the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data ,USSD, codes of nine commercial banks from their networks over unpaid debt.
This was contained in a directive signed by NCC’s Director of Public Affairs, Reuben Muoka.
The affected financial institutions include Fidelity Bank Plc, First City Monument Bank, Jaiz Bank Plc, Polaris Bank Limited, Sterling Bank Limited, United Bank for Africa Plc, Unity Bank Plc, Wema Bank Plc, and Zenith Bank Plc.
The NCC said that the affected banks are to pay the outstanding debts by January 27, 2025, or risk losing access to their USSD codes.
The NCC disclosed that nine out of 18 financial institutions had not complied with regulatory directives despite efforts made by the commission and the Central Bank of Nigeria.
The NCC said the initial debt owed by financial institutions was over N200bn.
This follows years of complaints by the telecom operators over the non-payment of debt owed by the banks for the USSD service, for which the banks continue to charge their customers.
According to a notice issued yesterday by the NCC, the banks to be disconnected include First City Monument Bank ,FCMB, Zenith Bank, Sterling Bank, Jaiz Bank, UBA, Polaris Bank, Unity Bank, Fidelity Bank, and Wema Bank.
If the disconnect is implemented, millions of bank customers will not be able to carry out transactions using USSD.
The banks, however, have been given a two-week grace to settle their debts with the telcos, failure upon which their codes will be disconnected.
“The Commission will thereafter recover such Codes and may reassign them to other applicants in accordance with the applicable instruments.
“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 Commission said in the notice signed by its Director of Public Affairs, Reuben Muoka.
The telecom regulator noted that as of the close of business on Tuesday, January 14,;2025, of a total of 18 financial institutions, the 9 institutions listed above were the only ones that have failed to comply significantly with the directives in the Second Joint Circular of the Central Bank of Nigeria ,CBN, and the Commission dated December 20, 2024, for the settlement of outstanding invoices due to MNOs, some since 2020.
It said the financial institutions’ failure to comply with the CBN-NCC Joint Circular also means that they are unable to meet the Good Standing requirements for the renewal of the USSD Codes assigned to them by the Commission.
“The financial institutions have been duly notified of the need for immediate compliance in accordance with the Commission’s Guidelines on Short Code Operation in Nigeria, 2023″, the NCC added.
In December 2024, the CBN and NCC issued a circular requiring banks to settle USSD debt. The circular mandated that banks pay a percentage of outstanding invoices and agree to payment plans. It also directed banks to stop legal actions related to the debt.
For years, the mobile network operators had threatened to disconnect the banks over the unpaid debt, which was put at N120 billion as of 2023.
However, the threats could not be carried out because they had to be sanctioned by the telecom regulator.
With a joint resolution of the two industry regulators, the NCC and CBN last year, the path to recovering the debt became clearer for the telecom operators.
