Home Spotlight Confusion, anger as telcoms charge N4 for banking services

Confusion, anger as telcoms charge N4 for banking services

by Radarr Africa

•Banks to still retain N50/USSD transactions
•Ministry claims ignorance, suspends plan
•’Why subscribers suffer early data depletion, rise in usage’

Beginning from today, Nigerians who use financial institutions’ unstructured supplementary service data (USSD) platforms to transfer money from one point to another are expected to incur additional charges for such services.

The USSD services include the GTB’s *737#; First Bank’s *894#; Fidelity Bank’s *770#; Access Bank’s *901#; and UBA’s *919# that run on telecoms’ operators platforms. While there is an initial charge of N50 by the bank, which will be retained, customers who use the USSD will be made to pay additional N4.

MTN had at the weekend notified its over 60 million customers in Nigeria of the new development via a text message which read: “Please note that from Oct 21, we will charge N4 per 20 seconds for USSD access to banking services. Please, contact your bank for more info. Thank you.”

The N4 per 20 seconds means that in every per minute, customers will pay ₦12 on each USSD transaction.

Therefore, assuming a quarter of MTN 60million customers (15 million) carry out a USSD transaction in a day, it means that the telecommunications firm could rake in as much as ₦180 million in a day, which could result in ₦5.58billion in a month.

An industry source told The Guardian yesterday that the decision was actually made by the banks’ chief executive officers who are not ready to make deduction from the N50 they charge for the telecoms firms to maintain the ICT infrastructure on which the platforms currently run. Instead, the banks decided to further charge the customers N4, which will be remitted to the telecoms companies for infrastructural maintenance.

“What I don’t really understand is why the banks and telecoms operators can’t agree to share the N50 which is already being charged. They are just there to exploit Nigerians,” he stressed.

A telecoms expert, Kehinde Aluko, who faulted the decision, said it could be a ploy by the government to make additional money from the industry through the backdoor.

“We have not forgotten the plan to introduce Communications Service Tax (CST). I am not saying this is it, but in Nigeria, anything can happen. It will interest you to know that other operators have long started charging additional money before MTN sent the text message to its subscribers. I just don’t know how they want ordinary Nigerians to survive. They want to milk everything out of Nigerians.”

A subscriber, Akin Olumuyiwa, described the additional charge as worrisome. He called on the minister and the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to come to the rescue of the over 175 million active subscribers in the country.

Another subscriber, Nnenna Adanma, said the initiative would not work. “It is disturbing. You know how much banks make from customers? They will charge you for everything—ATM maintenance, current account maintenance, SMS charge when they send you transaction details, and now they have colluded with the operators to force Nigerians to pay another N4, no wonder they declare bogus profits at the end of the year. The question is: where are the services? The same goes for the telecoms firms, the services remain unsatisfactory, yet they want to put more burden on subscribers. Government should do something very fast.”

A Twitter user, @DoctorEmto, wrote: “About that USSD thing, I noticed that @ZenithBank has been deducting every time I use their USSD code to check my account balance.”

Another user, @DonanAmillah wrote: “@MTNNG, yesterday I asked why you sent me a message about new charges on banks USSD usages, you insisted it was at the instance of banks, well one of my banks @FirstBank has DMed to say they didn’t ask you to do such. Can you show some proof?”

First Bank’s response to DonanAmillah reads: “This is to advise that the information on charges that apply when dialing *894# USSD codes is not from First Bank. You will be informed if there are any changes with any of our services. Please also note that First Bank has not increased the*894# transaction fees. Kindly disregard any message to that effect. #YouFirst.”

Access Bank, in its reaction to a customer who sent text messages to the bank via Twitter, said: “Our fees and charges on the USSD service remain unchanged, and all our services are available.”

In a swift reaction, the Minister of Communications, Dr. Isa Pantami, has suspended the plan.

In a statement made available by his spokesperson, Uwa Suleiman, titled “Discontinuation of Alleged USSD Service Charge by MTN”, Pantami said yesterday that the ministry was not aware of it.

This news was culled from The Guardian

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