Telecommunication companies acting under the directive of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) are set to temporarily cut off 18 banks’ Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) access because of their inability to settle a N200 billion debt that has accumulated since 2019.

This step follows a recent order by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the NCC, which ordered banks to pay a chunk of the USSD debt owed to telecommunication operators. However, only four banks complied with this order, with 18 others flouting it.

According to multiple sources, this has forced the commission’s hands, and it will issue a public notice soon. This notice will contain the names of the erring banks, preparing bank customers to seek alternatives during the suspension period.

“The suspension is not immediate. We will give the public a two-week notice,” one source said. USSD is a crucial payment gateway for many Nigerians. During the 20th anniversary of the telecoms sector in 2021, the then Group Managing Director of Zenith Bank Plc, Mr Ebenezer Onyeagwu, said, “The introduction of USSD changed everything. Without telecoms infrastructure, there is no USSD code.”

The value of USSD transactions between January and June 2024 was N2.19 trillion. However, this is a 54.75 percent decline from N4.84 trillion in the same period of 2023, with more Nigerians increasingly favouring internet transfers.

In a December 20 memo, the CBN and NCC gave banks a December 31, 2024, deadline to pay 85 percent of all outstanding invoices (from February 2022), a mandate that has been ignored by many of the banks.