MTN succumbs to Nigerian banks, reverts percentage on USSD commission

Telecoms company, MTN Nigeria, has agreed to return to the old percentage for commission on Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) to Nigerian bank, after a meeting between them.

The network provider said the USSD commission that will now be paid out to deposit money banks will be 4.5 percent. The decision came after MTN subscribers were banned from bank digital services.

MTN had reduced the commission of the lenders to 2.5 percent from 3.5 percent. This led to a disagreement between the network providers and GTBank, Access Bank and other commercial banks.

The new development was disclosed in a letter addressed to the Chief Executive Officers of the banks by the CEO of MTN Nigeria, Karl Toriola, sent after the meeting held on Tuesday.

Toriola said the decision to return to the old USSD commission was made due to the intervention of the regulators from both sectors. He stressed that both parties will still have to agree on terms of the new commission.

“In an attempt to resolve the current USSD recharge impasse, given the intervention from our regulators, we hereby agree that the banks revert to the status of 4.5 per cent commission.

“However, the banks and MTN Communications Nigeria Plc shall sit to agree on various options that will result in the reduction in the costs.”