Banks to Deduct USSD Transaction Fees from Users’ Mobile Airtime – NCC

By Friday Obande

The Communications Regulator, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has directed deposit money banks (DMBs) to stop deducting charges for unstructured supplementary service data (USSD) transactions directly from customers’ accounts.

Slyke Bulletin reports that in an official e-mail from the United Bank for Africa (UBA) to its customers on Tuesday, the charges will now be deducted from users’ mobile airtime, which take would be effective from June 3, 2025, being today.

“In line with the directive of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), please be informed that effective June 3, 2025, charges for USSD banking services will no longer be deducted from your bank account,” the statement reads.

“Going forward, these charges will be deducted directly from your mobile airtime balance in accordance with the NCC’s End-User Billing (EUB) model.

“Under this new billing structure, each USSD session will attract a charge of ₦6.98 per 120 seconds, which will be billed by your mobile network operator.

“You will receive a consent prompt at the start of each session, and airtime will only be deducted upon your confirmation and availability of the bank to fulfil this service.

“If you do not wish to continue using USSD banking under this new model, you may choose to discontinue use of the USSD channel,” it read.

The bank said customers can continue using other digital banking options and internet banking platform for convenience.

The latest directive may be another move by the commission to address the historical USSD payment conflict between mobile network operators (MNOs) and commercial banks.

Also recall that in December 2024, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the NCC directed mobile network operators (MNOs) and DMBs to resolve the long-standing N250 billion USSD debt.

Also, following threats by telcos to withdraw services over the debt accumulated by banks, the NCC, in January, threatened to suspend the USSD service and publish a list of banks still owing telcos and on January 15 2025, the regulator directed telcos to disconnect the USSD codes assigned to nine banks by January 27 due to unpaid debts.

Then on February 28 2025, MTN Nigeria said it received N32bn out of N72bn, from banks as part of payment for the USSD debt.