The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has stopped financial services providers (FSPs) and network services providers from double billing Nigerians who use Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) for financial transactions.
TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) reports this is contained in the Determination of USSD Pricing (amended) released by the NCC, which was signed by Prof. Umar Danbatta, the Executive Vice Chairman of the Commission.
Recall that to facilitate the provision of financial services over USSD channel, the NCC proactively issue shortcodes (USSD Strings) to financial service providers.
The USSD strings are used by the customers of the FSPs to carry out digital financial service transactions, and the FSPs had demanded that network services providers should migrate from corporate billing to end-user billing, which resulted in a public outcry.
However, the NCC reviewed the issue, in consultation with the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, and concluded that the use of USSD channel for financial transactions is a service provided by the network services providers to/for the financial service providers.
According to the NCC, customers have no direct relationship with the network services providers vis-a-vis financial services assessed through the USSD string and as such cannot be charged directly for the use of the USSD channel.
“Charging consumers directly for the use of USSD for financial services would result in double billing since the FSPs also charge the consumers for such services,” NCC stated.
The Commission categorically stated that network services providers must not charge consumers directly for the use of USSD channel for financial services in the form of end-user-billing.
The NCC also stated that the transaction should be between the network services providers and the entity to which the service is provided.
“All billings by MNOs for Financial Service using USSD code assigned to FSPs must thereby be implemented via the Corporate Billing model,” NCC stated.
This, according to the NCC, takes effect from the 1st day of August 2020 and remains valid and binding on licensees and service providers on USSD channels.