FG To Expose Names Of Banks Owing Telcos Almost ₦200 Billion On USSD

Indications have emerged revealing that the Bola Ahmed Tinubu-led administration plans to list out names of 18 banks owing almost ₦200 billion naira to Nigerian telecom operators on Unstructured Supplementary Service Data, USSD.

According to Vanguard, the 18 banks have remained adamant towards settling it for several years.

The reason for the publicity seems to be for the telcos to stop offering them services that enable their customers to conveniently do online banking.

According to the telco, only four banks have complied with payment, while 18 have bluntly refused to pay the debt, which has accumulated to over N200 billion in the last four years.

Spokesperson for telecoms operators, and Chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria (ALTON),  Gbenga Adebayo, who confirmed to ThisDay the NCC’s approval to suspend the USSD service, said the suspension would be for only two weeks, designed to notify bank customers who still use the USSD code for their financial transactions.

According to him, after two weeks of suspension, telcos will completely withdraw the USSD service from banks that may still refuse to clear off their debts.

It was gathered that although it was a tough decision to suspend and later withdraw the USSD service from banks that failed to clear their USSD debt, the measure became necessary to enable bank customers switch their services to other banks that have complied with the payment directive, since the outright service withdrawal will only affect banks that are owing.