Banks and telecommunications operators in Nigeria have ended a four-year dispute over nearly N300bn owed for Unstructured Supplementary Service Data services, with the debt now fully cleared, the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria said.
ALTON’s Chairman, Gbenga Adebayo, announced the resolution on Thursday during an official visit to the Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, Idris Olorunnimbe. He credited the intervention of the NCC, led by its Executive Vice Chairman, Aminu Maida, with bringing the long-standing dispute to a close.
“When Dr Maida assumed office, he inherited significant industry challenges,” Adebayo said. “One of the most difficult was the USSD debt crisis, a debt burden that grew over four years to nearly N300bn.
“It had become a systemic risk to our sector and the digital financial ecosystem. Through firm leadership, structured engagement, and decisive coordination, Dr Maida and his team resolved this issue. Today, there is no outstanding USSD debt. The ecosystem has fully migrated to end-user billing. What was once a looming crisis has been converted into a sustainable framework.”
The clearing of the debt ends years of accusations and counter-accusations between banks and telecom operators, which had threatened the stability of digital financial services in the country.
