The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has announced an important change on the deduction of charges for Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) transactions.
Starting Tuesday, June 3( Yesterday), 2025, Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) will no longer be allowed to deduct these fees directly from customers’ bank accounts. Instead, the charges will be deducted from users’ mobile airtime balances.
United Bank for Africa (UBA) informed its customers of this update through an email on Tuesday.
The bank’s statement reads: “In line with the directive of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), please be informed that effective June 3, 2025, charges for USSD banking services will no longer be deducted from your bank account.”
Going forward, the announcement specifies, “These charges will be deducted directly from your mobile airtime balance in accordance with the NCC’s End-User Billing (EUB) model.” Under this new billing structure, users will incur a charge of ₦6.98 for each 120-second USSD session, a fee billed by the respective mobile network operators.
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Customers will receive a consent prompt at the start of each session; airtime will only be deducted upon their confirmation and if their bank is available to process the service.
The UBA added: “If you do not wish to continue using USSD banking under this new model, you may choose to discontinue use of the USSD channel.”
UBA reassured its customers that they can continue to use alternative digital banking options and the internet banking platform for their convenience.
This latest directive is part of the NCC’s ongoing efforts to resolve payment disputes between mobile network operators (MNOs) and commercial banks over USSD transactions.
These conflicts trace back to December 2024, when both the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the NCC urged MNOs and Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) to settle a significant USSD debt totaling ₦250 billion.
Amid rising tensions, including threats from telecom companies to withdraw services over the unpaid debt, the NCC issued a warning in January to suspend USSD services and published a list of banks with outstanding payments to telecom providers.
On January 15, the regulator ordered telcos to disconnect USSD codes for nine banks by January 27 due to unpaid dues.
More recently, on February 28, MTN Nigeria reported having received ₦32 billion of the ₦72 billion owed by banks for USSD services.
NCC
