Banks Owe Telcos N17bn On USSD Charges — NCC

The Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta has said that commercial banks in the country are owing telecommunications companies over N17bn.

This is following the NCC’s suspension of its determination on Unstructured Supplementary Service Data Pricing last year.

The commission said this in a statement on Thursday, signed by the Director, Public Affairs, Ikechukwu Adinde.

The NCC had  revised the activation of the USSD, in furtherance of its mandate to protect the interests of consumers and support a robust telecommunications sector.

Danbatta said the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Ali Isa Ibrahim Pantami had already been briefed on the development with a view to ensuring a speedy  settlement of the debt.

He said when the NCC introduced the Do-Not-Disturb code in 2015, less than 500,000 people activated the code. However, he said there are now 22,722,366 lines on the DND.

The NCC boss noted that 98 per cent of the total service-related complaints received from telecoms consumers within a 15-month period have been resolved.

According to him, the 15 months period covered January 2019 to April 2020.

He said, “The Commission has monthly engagements with operators as well as quarterly industry working group on Quality of Service and Short Codes, and is currently monitoring 2G Key Performance Indicators, while the KPIs for 4G are being prepared.”

The commission had recently said that the amendment to its USSD Determination was induced by a dispute between Mobile Network Operators and Financial Institutions on the applicable charges for USSD services and the method of billing.

The Commission revised the Determination previously issued by removing the Price Floor and the Cap to allow Mobile Network Operators and the banks negotiate rates that will be mutually beneficial to all parties concerned.

The NCC also in the current review said that Mobile Network Operators must not charge the consumers directly for the use of USSD channels for financial services in the form of end-user-billing, but revert to corporate billing.

According to the NCC, transactions should be between the MNOs and the Banks and Financial Institutions.