Africhome News Team can now Comfirmed to you that Commercial banks and mobile network providers in Nigeria have started charging all customers a flat rate of N6.98 per transaction every time they use the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) service.
The new charge followed the announcement made in March by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC)“Effective March 16, 2021, USSD services for financial transactions conducted at DMBs (Deposit Money Banks) and all CBN-licensed institutions will be charged at a flat fee of N6.98 per transaction,” CBN and NCC spokesman Osita Nwanisobi and Ikechukwu Adinde had said in the statement.
Dear Customer,
IMPORTANT UPDATE ON USSD TRANSACTIONS
Please be informed that you are now required to pay a fee of N6.98 to your mobile network provider for every banking transaction carried out on all USSD banking platforms.
This means that when you send money to anyone using USSD, a fee of N6.98 will be charged to your bank account, which is in turn remitted in full by your Bank, to your mobile network provider.
Please note that Airtime and Data purchases via USSD are exempt from this charge on USSD platforms.
As our customer, we are making sure you have as many options as possible for all your financial transactions. You can send money to anyone and pay bills anytime using our GTWorld Mobile App, at no extra charge
The charges were part of the agreement reached when banks and telecommunication operators discussed the N42 billion debt with the apex bank and the NCC after network providers threatened to withdraw the service from banks as the accumulated debt remained unpaid.
In the statement, both the CBN and NCC assured that it would collect the new USSD charge on behalf of network providers directly from customers’ bank accounts and would not impose any extra charges on customers to use the USSD service.
Both bodies noted the new payment arrangement would be cheaper for customers to enhance financial inclusion.
