Telecommunications operators in the country have threatened to withdraw unstructured supplementary service data (USSD), filling a debt of over N80 billion owed them by banks.
Chairman, Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), Gbenga Adebayo, who made this known, said banks had refused to pay for the service and a time will come when it will be withdrawn.
“The debt is rising and has not been paid by the banks. As of November 2022, the accumulated debt rose to over N80 billion. When we started the argument in 2019, it was N32 billion, and they continue to claim that they are not owing, but our investigation shows that they are still using the USSD platform to offer banking services to their customers, yet they are not remitting to telecom operators who own the USSD platform,” Adebayo said in a recent interview with Thisday.
Continuing, he said:“We are warning that the banks’ action in refusing to pay their debt, will have negative consequence on the CBN’s cashless economy agenda for the country. It will be a threat to cashless economy. So, CBN should advise money deposit banks to pay up the accumulated debts.”
