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The body of bank Chief Executive Officers(CEOs), on Monday denied knowledge of a message being circulated by a telecommunications company, MTN Nigeria Communications PLC, which states that the banks requested the telecommunication company to start charging customers for Unstructured Supplementary Service Data(USSD) transactions directly.
Recall that MTN Nigeria had sent a Short Message Service (SMS) to its subscribers over the weekend, saying it will start charging customers for USSD transactions carried out over its network.
The message from the telecommunication company read,” Yello, as requested by your bank, from Oct 21, we will start charging you directly for USSD access to banking services. Please contact your bank for more info.”
But the body of CEOs said the banks did not ask MTN to start charging customers as contained in the messages sent by the company, noting that the decision to charge customers for accessing USSD is entirely that of the company.
The body further stated that MTN is the only telecommunication company in the country that is yet to implement end-user billing which they say is ” the standard practice to customer-initiated transactions.”
They added that the banks and the Central Bank of Nigeria( CBN )have engaged MTN Nigeria for over a year to bring down the cost of accessing USSD to aid the national financial inclusion strategy of the federal government.
The CEOs assured that charges for financial transactions carried out with the banks remain unchanged, adding that financial transaction charges are regulated by CBN as stipulated in the bankers tariff.