Yesterday, September 29, the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria -ALTON, threatened to disconnect banks in the country from the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data -USSD, over the ever-increasing debt they were being owed by banks.
The ALTON includes MTN Nigeria, Airtel, Glo, 9Mobile, and several others.
The Chairman of ALTON, Gbenga Adebayo, who spoke at the ICT Growth Conference in Lagos, revealed that the debt owed by the banks to the telecom companies had risen from N42 billion in 2021 to N80 billion in 2022.
According to Adebayo, the debt had come about from the USSD services the telecoms firms provided to the banks.
The ALTON chief subsequently revealed that the banks have been charging their customers for using their USSD platforms, but have refused to pay the telecom providers their commission.
Adebayo had tagged the banks as “dishonorable” for refusing to honor their obligation/commitment to the service providers.
