Nigerian Banks have lifted the ban placed on MTN subscribers from recharging their lines or data plan via Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD).
This was confirmed by our analyst, who recharged his line using the USSD code of GTBank on Sunday.
MTN, according to media reports have reached an agreement with the commercial banks, a development that led to the restoration of the suspended services.
The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami, on Sunday afternoon, through his verified Twitter handle, confirmed the restoration of the services.
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The Minister tweeted:
The services have been restored since early morning, today. Best wishes.
Earlier, an intervention by banking and communication regulators in its dispute with Nigerian Banks, saw MTN Nigeria revert commercial banks’ commission to 4.5%.
This move by MTN corroborates the statement made on Friday by the Nigerian government that talks to resolve the dispute have “reached an advanced stage.”
A statement signed by Karl Toriola, MTN Chief Executive Officer, and addressed to the Chairman of Body of Banks’ CEOs, Herbert Wigwe, on Saturday said:
In an attempt to resolve the current USSD recharge impasse, given the intervention from our regulators, we hereby agree that the banks revert to the status quo of 4.5% commission.
However, the banks and MTN Communications Nigeria Plc shall sit to agree on various options that will result in the reduction in the costs on 6th of April 2021.
The disagreement began after MTN reduced the percentage it remits to the banks for each amount of airtime from 4.5% to 2.5%.
In response to the development, the banks removed the telecom firm from their platforms on Friday, following a feud over the sharing of fees by both sides. All banks in Nigeria, except Zenith Bank, had taken MTN off their platform.
On Saturday, April 3, however, MTN Nigeria announced fintech alternative channels for its customers to buy airtime for their mobile devices after commercial banks disallowed MTN subscribers to use their channels.
