Banks’ N120bn USSD Debt: Telcos Not Yet Paid, Discussion Ongoing – ALTON

Telecom operators are yet to get firm agreement from commercial banks who they allege are owing N120 billion for Unstructured Supplementary Services Data (USSD), according to the Association of Licenced Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON)

Recall, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) had in September at the Telecom Executives and Regulators Forum (TERF) said the deposit money banks agreed to pay the debt after the intervention of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

Executive vice chairman of the NCC, Umar Danbatta, had said the issue between the banks and telcos was resolved at a recent meeting between Folashodun Shonubi, then acting CBN governor, the NCC, telecom operators, and the banks.

However, Chairman of the Association of Licenced Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), Gbenga Adebayo said on Thursday, that while there was some admission by the banks that certain amount of debt is being owed, they were yet to agree with the telcos on how to flesh out the details and modality for payment.

Adebayo said “Discussions are ongoing, it has not been resolved. But there is some admittance by the banks that they owe telcos. It is now the mechanism for payment that has not been reached.”

However, Adebayo said there was progress given that the banks have agreed they owe the telcos and this position has been acknowledged by other telecom stakeholders that they were yet to get a definitive statement from the banks on how the money will be paid.

Danbatta has said that the delay in paying the debt could impact the financial inclusion drive of the CBN.

The EVC NCC explained that the USSD service is being provided to the banks, who in turn provide the service to their customers. The question was who should be paying for the service.

“They wanted end-user billing, but we said the service is being provided to the banks, not to their customers. The banks charge their customers for the service, and they are to pay the telcos in the form of corporate billing, which is neat.

“Then along the way, there was a misunderstanding and the debt kept piling until it reached a humongous amount of over N100 billion. Even at that, the service was still being provided to customers by the banks using the telecom infrastructure and the telcos were being paid nothing. This was despite the intervention of the immediate past Minister,” Danbatta hinted.