{"id":68500,"date":"2025-06-19T08:21:14","date_gmt":"2025-06-19T08:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=68500"},"modified":"2025-06-19T08:21:14","modified_gmt":"2025-06-19T08:21:14","slug":"ussd-debt-telcos-to-deduct-charges-directly-from-airtime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/06\/19\/ussd-debt-telcos-to-deduct-charges-directly-from-airtime\/","title":{"rendered":"USSD Debt: Telcos to Deduct Charges Directly from Airtime"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Onyeanya Ebere Immaculata<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Telecom operators in Nigeria will now deduct Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), charges directly from subscribers\u2019 airtime, following a new End-User Billing (EUB), framework approved by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).<\/p>\n<p>Under the new model, MTN, Airtel, Glo, and 9mobile will bypass banks and collect the standard \u20a66.98 per USSD session directly from users, ending a long-standing dispute over unpaid service fees.<\/p>\n<p>Telcos claim banks owed them over \u20a6200 billion for USSD services rendered by the end of 2024.<\/p>\n<p>National President of the Association of Telecoms Subscribers, Adeolu Ogunbanjo, hailed the move as a long-overdue reform that ensures transparency and accountability.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBefore now, banks deducted charges from users but failed to remit payments to telcos,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The Association of Licensed Telecom Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), confirmed the rollout of the new regime, with banks like GTB, UBA, and FCMB already notifying customers of the change.<\/p>\n<p>ALTON Chairman Gbenga Adebayo described the shift as a major milestone in Nigeria\u2019s digital financial ecosystem, assuring subscribers that USSD services would continue uninterrupted.<\/p>\n<p>A phased repayment plan has also been agreed upon to settle the banks\u2019 outstanding debts, with deadlines extending to December 2025.<\/p>\n<p>Stakeholders believe the change will enhance trust, improve service quality, and promote digital inclusion, especially in underserved communities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Onyeanya Ebere Immaculata &nbsp; Telecom operators in Nigeria will now deduct Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), charges directly from subscribers\u2019 airtime, following a new End-User Billing (EUB), framework approved by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). Under the new model, MTN, Airtel, Glo, and 9mobile will bypass banks [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":68501,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172,1719,180],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-tax","category-technology"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68500"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68502,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68500\/revisions\/68502"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}