The Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Prof. Umar Danbatta, has disclosed that the impasse surrounding the N120 billion debt owed by banks for the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), provided by telecom operators has now been resolved.
Danbatta disclosed this at the Telecom Executives and Regulators Forum (TERF) held in Lagos on Thursday.
Telecom operators had recently accused banks of politicising the issue and exacerbating the situation, turning what should be a straightforward commercial agreement into a protracted and contentious issue.
Danbatta, however, disclose that the banks, after the intervention of the acting governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Folashodun Shonubi, had agreed to clear the accumulated debt and continue to pay for the USSD service going forward, under the corporate billing term.
According to the EVC, the issue was resolved at a recent meeting between the acting CBN Governor, the NCC, the telecom operators, and the banks.
The resolution, he said, was achieved based on the realisation that financial inclusion cannot be achieved without telecom services.
Danbatta said the banks’ insistence on end-user billing as opposed to corporate billing had led to the accumulation of the debt.
“They wanted end-user billing, but we said the service is being provided to the banks, not to their customers.
“The banks charge their customers for the service, and they are to pay the telcos in the form of corporate billing, which is neat.
“Then along the way, there was a misunderstanding and the debt kept piling until it reached a humongous amount of over N100 billion. Even at that, the service was still being provided to customers by the banks using the telecom infrastructure and the telcos were being paid nothing. This was despite the intervention of the immediate past Minister,” Danbatta explained.
While noting that the situation had remained the same until recently when Shonubi intervened, the EVC said the CBN boss acknowledged that without the USSD service, there would be no digital financial inclusion and the penetration of the inclusion would be nowhere near where it is now.
“Digital financial inclusion index or penetration is currently about 70% 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’s all we ask. Okay, and as we’re saying, Now, pay them for the debt, the accumulated debt, and then pay them for the service they are rendering as we speak.
“At a meeting between the acting CBN governor, the NCC, the telcos and the banks, it was acknowledged that the debt exists, that going forward, the service has to be paid for by the banks through corporate billing. It is an important development for the telecoms industry that we have found an amicable resolution to the problem because we’re all serving the same government. We do not want to disrupt financial services in the country.
“We want to see the financial inclusion penetration to even go higher. We want it to be ubiquitous, but we cannot do this without settling the legacy debt, as well as paying for the service that is being provided,” Danbatta stated.
