Bank CEOs commend NCC, CBN decision to suspend USSD charges by Telcos

The Body of Bank Chief Executive Officer (CEOs) has applauded the recent notice from the National Communications Commission (NCC) announcing the immediate suspension of end-user billing for Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) services.

The body also thanked the federal government for championing this action.

It will be recalled that telecommunication gaint, MTN Nigeria in a text message to subscribers said  N4.00 per 20 seconds would be charged on USSD  access to banking service charges  and to be effective from October 21, 2019.

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“Yello, as requested by your bank, from Oct. 21, we will start charging you directly for USSD access to banking services. Please contact your bank for more information,’’ the message said.

The NCC on Wednesday said telecom companies do not have the right to impose charges on bank customers for using the USSD channel for banking transactions.

The body of Bank CEOs in a statement on Thursday said, “When presented with two options by the telecommunications companies – corporate billing versus end-user billing – banks supported the standard practice for a relationship between a telecommunications company and their subscribers.

“We proposed the same method they charge for voice calls, SMS and data. We then asked to work with the telecommunications companies to bring the cost of their USSD service down for Nigerians. We were therefore very surprised at the announcements from MTN on the 19th and 20th October.

Since banks cannot reasonably be expected to charge for the service of another industry, over which they have no control of price, quality and security we are delighted that consumers will now be able to access their bank for free, using USSD. This is a giant leap for the National Financial Inclusion Strategy where, through Bank’s subsidising USSD, we have already been able to bring 20million Nigerians into the formal financial system in recent years.

They expressed that the Banks over the time supported by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), and have long advocated the designation of USSD services as a critical national asset to enable such free access to USSD.

According to them, “Indeed, in countries like India, free access to USSD channels have long been established to successfully drive financial inclusion.

“We look forward to working with the telecommunications industry to achieve the objectives of the National Financial Inclusion Strategy. We believe that with this new development, we will achieve 80per cent financial inclusion in 2020.”

The Governor of CBN, Mr Godwin Emefiele, gave the bank’s position at a news briefing by the Nigerian delegation to the just-concluded World Bank/IMF Annual Meetings, in Washington during the weekend.

Responding to a question seeking his reaction to the announcement, the CBN governor said the bank would not allow that to happen.

According to him, “About five, four months ago, I held a meeting with some telecom companies as well as the leading banks in Nigeria at CBN’s Lagos office. At that time, we came to the conclusion that the use of USSD is a sunk cost.

“What we mean by suck coat is that it is not an additional cost on the infrastructure of the telecom company.

“But the telecom companies disagreed with us. They said it was an additional investment in infrastructure and for that reason, they needed to impose it.

“I have told banks that we will not allow this to happen, the banks are the people who give this business to the telecom companies and I leave the banks and telecom companies to engage”, he said.