NCC tells banks to deduct USSD transaction fees from mobile airtime of users.
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has told deposit money banks to stop deducting charges for unstructured supplementary service data (USSD) transactions directly from customers’ accounts.
According to an email from the United Bank for Africa (UBA) to customers on Tuesday, the charges will now be deducted from users’ mobile airtime,
The UBA said the directive takes effect from June 3 (today).
“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,” the statement reads.
“Going forward, 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, each USSD session will attract a charge of ₦6.98 per 120 seconds, which will be billed by your mobile network operator.
“You will receive a consent prompt at the start of each session, and airtime will only be deducted upon your confirmation and availability of the bank to fulfil this service.
“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 stated that customers can continue using other digital banking options and internet banking platform for convenience.
This current directive may be another move by the commission to address the historical USSD payment conflict between mobile network operators (MNOs) and commercial banks.
