NCC: How banks’ N120bn USSD service debt threatens financial inclusion drive

Umar Danbatta, the executive vice-chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), says the N120 billion unstructured supplementary service data (USSD) debt owed to telecommunication firms by banks, significantly affects financial inclusion.

Danbatta spoke on Thursday, at the sector’s executives and regulators forum held in Lagos, by the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria.

The NCC boss said without telecom services, financial inclusion, which he pegged at between 60 to 70 percent in the country, would not be where it is currently.

“The merit of the service is that without it, there will be no digital financial inclusion and the penetration would be nowhere where it is now,” Danbatta said.

“The digital financial inclusion index or penetration is currently about 70 percent because it is telco-driven. And as such, there shouldn’t be any problem paying for the service.

“No service is free. Pay the telcos, that is all we ask. Okay, and as we are saying now, pay them for the debt, the accumulated debt, and then pay them for the service they are rendering as we speak.”

Danbatta said banks had finally agreed to pay for the service, following sustained intervention from the NCC and Folashodun Shonubi, the acting Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor.

“I think this is an important development for the telecoms industry, that we have found an amicable resolution of the problem because we’re all serving the same government,” he added.

“We do not want to disrupt financial services in the country. I’m talking about the telecommunication service providers, and we want to see the index on the penetration even go higher.

“We want it to be ubiquitous everywhere. Okay, but we cannot do this without settling the legacy debt, as well as paying for the service that is being provided.

On his part, Gbolahan Awonuga, head of operations, Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria, said some banks had begun to pay their USSD debt, but the payment is still low.

The effort by the banks to pay telcos may see the end of a protracted disagreement on the use of the USSD infrastructure for financial transactions.

In 2022, telecommunications operators threatened to withdraw their USSD services due to the debt, which was at N80 billion as of November last year.

The debt had increased from N32 billion in 2019 when the argument started to the current N120 billion.