The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has announced a major change that affects the deduction of charges for Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) transactions.
United Bank for Africa (UBA) informed its customers of this update via email on Tuesday.
Breaking it down, from Tuesday, June 3, 2025, Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) will be prohibited from deducting the fees directly from customers’ bank accounts. Rather, the charges will be deducted from users’ mobile airtime balances.
“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. These charges will be deducted directly from your mobile airtime balance in accordance with the NCC’s End-User Billing (EUB) model,” UBA said.
Under this new billing structure, bank users will incur a charge of ₦6.98 for each 120-second USSD session, a fee billed by the respective mobile network operators.
Customers will also receive a consent prompt before every session, and airtime will only be deducted upon their confirmation, and if their bank is available to process the service.
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“If you do not wish to continue using USSD banking under this new model, you may choose to discontinue use of the USSD channel,” UBA added.
The financial institution reassured its customers that they can keep using alternative digital banking options for their convenience.
This latest development is part of the NCC’s ongoing efforts to resolve payment disputes between mobile network operators (MNOs) and commercial banks over USSD transactions.
The back and forth can be traced back to when both the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the NCC ordered MNOs and Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) to settle their huge USSD debt totalling ₦250 billion.
Amid intense conflict, including threats from telecom companies to withdraw services over the unpaid debt, the NCC went as far as threatening to suspend USSD services completely.
On January 15, the regulator ordered telcos to disconnect USSD codes for nine banks by January 27 due to unpaid dues.
On the 28th of February MTN Nigeria announced the receipt of ₦32 billion of the ₦72 billion owed by banks for USSD services.
