The Central Bank of Nigeria has kicked against the proposed plan of MTN Nigeria to start charging its subscribers for USSD access to banking services from today, Monday.
The CBN Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele, said this on Sunday during a media briefing of the annual meetings of the World Bank/International Monetary Fund holding in Washington DC.
9News Nigeria had reported that Telecom giant in Nigeria, MTN, had, on Sunday, sent messages to its subscribers that it would start charging for USSD access to banking services from Monday, October 21.
In a counter notion, Mr Emefiele said that such a move would discourage the CBN’s financial inclusion drive.
“About five months ago, I held a meeting with some telecom companies as well as the leading banks in Nigeria and the issue of USSD came up.
“At that time, we came to the conclusion that the use of USSD is a sunk cost, which is not an additional cost on the infrastructure of the telecom companies. But the telecoms companies disagreed with us and said it is an additional investment and they needed to impose it.”
The CBN governor added, “I appealed to them that they should review it downwards and they refused. I understand that three or four weeks ago, rather than reduce it, they went ahead to increase it by 300 percent.
“I opposed it and I have told the banks that we will not allow this to happen; the banks gave this business to the telecoms companies, and I leave the banks and the telecom companies to engage.”
Emefiele further said he had instructed the banks to move their business to any telecom company that would be ready to charge the lowest service rate, if not zero cost.
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