The Body of Bank CEOs applauds the recent no#ce from the Na#onal
Communica#ons Commission (NCC) announcing the immediate suspension of
end-user billing for Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) services.
We would like to thank the Federal Government of Nigeria for championing
this ac#on.
When presented with two op#ons by the telecommunica#ons companies –
corporate billing versus end-user billing – banks supported the standard
prac#ce for a rela#onship between a telecommunica#ons company and their
subscribers. We proposed the same method they charge for voice calls, SMS
and data. We then asked to work with the telecommunica#ons companies to
bring the cost of their USSD service down for Nigerians. We were therefore
very surprised at the announcements from MTN on the 19
th
and 20
th
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 Na#onal Financial Inclusion Strategy
where, through Bank’s subsidising USSD, we have already been able to bring
20m Nigerians into the formal 7nancial system in recent years.
The Banks, supported by the Central Bank of Nigeria, have long advocated the
designa#on of USSD services as a cri#cal na#onal asset to enable such free
access to USSD. Indeed, in countries like India, free access to USSD channels
have long been established to successfully drive 7nancial inclusion.
We look forward to working with the telecommunica#ons industry to achieve
the objec#ves of the Na#onal Financial Inclusion Strategy. We believe that with
this new development, we will achieve 80% 7nancial inclusion in 2020.
