CBN directs banks to resolve USSD disputes in three days

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) says all commercial banks must resolve disputes arising from the use of Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) channels within three days.

Dipo Fatokun, CBN’s director, banking and payment systems department, made this known at the Meet The Executive forum organised by Finance Correspondents Association of Nigeria (FICAN) in Lagos.

Fatokun, who was represented by Taiwo Oladimeji, assistant director of the department, said the directive would build more confidence in the payment system.

The director said some provisions of the regulatory framework for USSD are meant to make the channel more effective.

He listed some of the provisions as authentication measures for transactions, international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI), date of SIM swap, date of device change, international mobile equipment identity (IMEI).

The director said the maximum USSD transaction limit is still N100,000 per customer daily, and that any amount above that required customers to execute indemnity at the bank.

“USSD transactions above N20,000 require two-factor authentication (2FA),” he said.

“No USSD financial service should be activated for customers unless the deactivation mechanism is put in place with effect from October 2018.

“In addition, the CBN is currently working to properly structure and formalise the sandbox arrangement in Nigeria by collaborating with some infrastructure providers like the Nigeria Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS) to interact with FinTechs.

“We are seeing new operators with technology savvy, more efficient models, and collaborations among new entrants as well as established participants in payments systems in ways that exhibit regulatory challenges.

“To meet up with the challenges, some countries have adopted regulatory sandbox approach which is not totally novel to the CBN.

“We are, however, working to properly structure and formalise the sandbox arrangement in Nigeria by collaborating with some infrastructure providers to interact with FinTechs.”

Fatokun said a functional National Payments System (NPS) is crucial to the development of the financial sector as it would increase confidence in the financial sector by ensuring a credible, reliable and efficient payment system.

He observed that in recent years, the Nigerian payment landscape had experienced a lot of innovation, bursting with enterprise and reaching the unbanked.