MTN, GLO, Others Threatens To Suspend Services
Prominent Network provider, MTN has stood its ground that if the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) fail to address the unsustainable debt of about N250 billion owed mobile network operators (MNOs) as a result of the use of the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), the operators might, subject to regulatory approval, suspend supporting the use of the service on the network for banking operations.
USSD is a Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) protocol for sending text messages. It is also used to initiate financial transactions such as cash transfers, balance inquiries, service payments, and others.
Fielding questions yesterday from Fellows of the Media Innovation Programme (MIP) sponsored by MTN Nigeria and in partnership with Pan Atlantic University, Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos, who were on inspection of MTN’s key facilities in the city, CEO of MTN, Karl Toriola, said the debt has continued to pile up and is becoming unsustainable to the operators.
Toriola, who expressed optimism that the new CBN governor, Yemi Cardoso, and the Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Dr Aminu Maida, would resolve the impasse very soon, said that if it is not resolved, the operators would be compelled to seek regulatory approval to discontinue allowing commercial banks to run transactions on the platform.
