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Nigerians on Friday complained bitterly of their inability to use the the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) and banking apps.
TheNewsGuru.com, TNG observed that the complaints were more severe amongst MTN customers. They were unable to recharge their lines, do banking transactions on their MTN lines using USSD and the bank apps.
As expected some Nigerians did not find the development easy and commented on it bitterly on their social media platforms:
Only in Nigeria, Banks will cut you out without notice or anything. Why affect the lives of citizens just because you want to make money through USSD code. God is watching y'all.
— Call me Pulchritude ❁ (@jabdul4u) April 3, 2021
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I’ve tried recharging 3k almost 6 times through USSD and it’s not still going through ?.
I hope when it starts working, I won’t be debited 6 times. God please.
Na my feeding money for 4 months be that ???Advertisement
— ? DINMA ? (@dinma_x) April 2, 2021
Nigerian banks are known for belligerent, bullying attitudes toward customers, but cutting off USSD banking access to 64 million Nigerians after a secret meeting without informing anyone is an action that should elicit a huge fine from the CBN at the very least.
— David Hundeyin (@DavidHundeyin) April 2, 2021
Meanwhile, a source in MTN who spoke with The Punch Newspaper said the telecommunications giant was not responsible for the disruptive services.
He said, “Please note that MTN didn’t cut off customers and has no hand in this. This is strictly the banks acting on their own.
“We woke up this morning to see that MTN customers were cut off from USSD services overnight. This has come as a surprise as there was no formal communication from the banks to their customers prior to their taking this action.
The source disclosed that MTN had reduced the banks’ commission from an average of 3.5 per cent to 2.5 per cent which predicated the actions of the banks.
According to the source, the reduction is standard because the volumes compensate for the reduction, adding that the contract with convenience channel partners and aggregators through which they were indirectly connected to the banks allowed this.
The source said, “The banks wrote back to the aggregators to revert back to the old commission, otherwise, they would block MTN airtime in all their channels.
“The channels were blocked midnight leaving our customers stranded. Interesting that the bank Managing Directors met and quickly took a decision. Subscribers to telecommunications are being denied services by the banks even when they have money in their accounts.”
He noted that Zenith bank, which was connected directly to MTN and had their earnings at 2.70 per cent, was the only bank that had not blocked the telco.
However, banks on MOD that had an uplift in their commission from 2.0 per cent to 2.75 per cent have blocked services, according to him. Banks with direct connection to the telco through MOD got a commission uplift.
According to the source, the banks were unwilling to pay the cost of the USSD channel and were okay with cutting off subscribers in order to protect their profits.
He added, “This only has to do with preservation of bank profits, which are already substantial and growing despite the wider economic conditions
“The government needs to step in and deal with this once and for all. Nigerian banks need to stop their tyrannical posture.”
Minister wades in
Sensing the danger ahead, Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami held a meeting with the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Executive Vice Chairman of Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) stating that the issues will be resolved soon and services restored.
On the fallout between @MTNNG and some banks on USSD services today, I engaged with both regulators, the Governor of @cenbank and EVC @NgComCommission. We have reached an advance stage of resolving the issues, for the services to be restored to our citizens. Many thanks!
— Isa Ali Pantami, PhD (@DrIsaPantami) April 2, 2021