Telecommunication companies (TELCOS) under the aegis of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) have stated that as of November this year, N80 billion was owed to them by banks from the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD). This was made known on Tuesday during an interview with ThisDay by the Association’s chairman, Gbenga Adebayo, adding that telcos may be forced to withdraw from USSD services if the debt is not paid.
He said, “The debt is rising and has not been paid by the banks. As of November 2022, the accumulated debt rose to over N80 billion. When we started the argument in 2019, it was N32 billion and they continue to claim that they are not owing but our investigation shows that they are still using the USSD platform to offer banking services to their customers, yet they are not remitting to telecom operators who own the USSD platform.
“Time will soon come when we will be constrained to withdraw the service and many bank customers that depend on the USSD service will suffer for it and it will affect the economy. It is honorable to pay their debts and they have to pay.
“We are warning that the bank’s action in refusing to pay their debt, will have a negative consequence on the CBN’s cashless economy agenda for the country. It will be a threat to cashless economy. So, CBN should advise money deposit banks to pay up the accumulated debts”.
