Sources at the Nigerian Communications Commission have dismissed recent claims by banks that deductions for Unstructured Supplementary Service Data charges from customers’ airtime—known as end-user billing—began on June 3.

According to NCC officials, who requested anonymity as they were not authorised to speak publicly, the process is still in the testing phase.

They confirmed that banks and telecom operators are yet to finalise the arrangements, and no official start date has been set, according to Nairametrics.

“The technical integration and end-to-end testing are still being worked on, after which they will be communicated by respective banks to their customers on the commencement date, which has yet to be determined,” one of the sources stated.

It was earlier reported that some banks including UBA and FCMB announced that USSD transaction charges would be deducted from customers’ airtime starting June 3, 2025, citing a directive from the NCC.

“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,” one of the banks said in a notice sent to its customers on June 3.

“Going forward, these charges will be deducted directly from your mobile airtime balance in accordance with the NCC’s End-User Billing (EUB) model,” it added.

However, NCC sources have denied issuing any such directive, clarifying that the arrangement is still being tested and no official start date has been set.

Meanwhile, telecom operators have criticised the banks’ announcement, calling it gross misinformation crafted to serve “selfish interests.” They expressed displeasure over the premature notice, insisting that discussions on the new billing arrangement are still ongoing and unresolved.

“I don’t understand why the banks are twisting agreements and distorting information just to favour their selfish interests. In the first place, the information wasn’t a directive from the NCC but a joint regulatory agreement between the NCC and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN witnessed by the telcos and the banks,” said the Chairman of the Association of Licensed Telecom Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), Engr. Gbenga Adebayo.

“The agreement was that if the banks finally cleared all USSD debts owed to the telcos by June 2, 2025, they are free to migrate to the end-user billing method, so long as the model of migration is transparent and agreed upon by the telcos,” he added.

According to him, the clause was included at the insistence of telecom operators to ensure that customers are not billed twice during the migration—meaning a subscriber would not have both airtime and bank account funds deducted for the same USSD transaction.

“As we speak, some of the banks have cleared their debts, but the majority are yet to do so. So, even if all the modalities of migrating to end-user billing have been perfectly carried out, the implementation cannot even begin because the banks are yet to clear the USSD debt owed to the telcos,” Adebayo added.

Nigerian banks and telecom operators have been locked in a prolonged dispute over unpaid USSD charges, with banks often failing to remit funds to telcos after debiting customers’ accounts.

To address the issue, the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Nigerian Communications Commission in December 2024 directed Deposit Money Banks and Mobile Network Operators to resolve the lingering N250 billion USSD debt.