January 30, 2025
Defaulting lenders, on Monday scramble to meet the deadline by the close of business as the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC and telecommunications companies have ruled out a deadline extension for Nigerian banks’ disconnection notice from Unstructured Supplementary Service Data, USSD, over unpaid debts elapsed.
The Chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria, Gbenga Adebayo, made this known in a statement.
The NCC, had in a notice, on January 15, 2025 warned nine Nigerian banks to clear their debts by January 27, 2025, or risk losing access to their USSD codes, which is an essential service enabling millions of Nigerians to do banking transactions.
As at Friday last week, telcos confirmed, that the nine Nigerian banks that were in arrears had dropped to seven, indicating that only two lenders have made payments, but by close of work Monday, one more bank indicated its intention to settle, leaving six banks still in arrears.
According to Adebayo, “This is just the first phase of the directive. We hope that banks that have complied with this phase will continue to meet their obligations in subsequent ones.
READ MORE; Banks Move To Pay USSD debt To Avoid Disconnection As Deadline Approaches
“The second phase will see banks required to complete full payment of all pre-API invoices by July 2, 2025. Following that, the third phase mandates the settlement of 85 percent of post-API invoices by December 31, 2025.
He emphasized that, “When it comes to the second and third phases, we expect full compliance, Non-compliance at any stage will have consequences, and we hope to avoid any disruption of services.”
