The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has reportedly issued an ultimatum for nine banks: pay up on their Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) codes or be disconnected before the end of this month.
According to the Nigerian Tribune, a directive signed by NCC public affairs director Reuben Muoka said that the nine banks – Fidelity Bank, First City Monument Bank, Jaiz Bank, Polaris Bank, Sterling Bank, United Bank for Africa, Unity Bank, Wema Bank and Zenith Bank – must settle their outstanding debts to operators by January 27 or lose access to their USSD codes.
As we reported last year, the USSD debt problem has been a source of friction between Nigerian banks and telcos for years. As of December 2024, 18 banks owed telecom firms NGN250 billion (US$160.8 million) for using their USSD services, according to local newspaper Punch, with some unpaid invoices dating back as far as 2020. It was only after the NCC and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) intervened that banks started paying their debts in June 2024, albeit slowly.
According to local newspaper Punch, the NCC and CBN issued a Second Joint Circular in December 2024 that said “60% of all pre-API invoices [e.g. .before February 2022] must be paid as full and final settlement”. Banks and telcos were required to agree on a payment plan by January 2, 2025. Plans involving instalments must be completed by July 2025.
For post-API invoices, banks were required to pay 85% of all outstanding invoices by December 31, 2024, while 85% of all future invoices must be cleared within one month of issuance.
The new directive from the NCC said that of the 18 banks involved, nine have complied with the Second Joint Circular, while the nine listed above have not. Those banks now have until January 27 to pay up, else their USSD codes will be taken away and reassigned, the Nigerian Tribune report said.
The NCC also warned customers of those banks that they will not be able to use those USSD codes to make transactions after January 27, the report added.
