Big trouble is brewing for nine banks in Nigeria. The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has directed telecommunication companies to cut off the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) access of these banks due to their inability to settle a whopping N160 billion debt that has been pending since 2019.
The affected banks are Fidelity Bank Plc (770), First City Monument Bank (329), Jaiz Bank Plc (773), Polaris Bank Limited (833), Sterling Bank Limited (822), United Bank for Africa Plc (919), Unity Bank Plc (7799), Wema Bank Plc (945), and Zenith Bank Plc (966). If they don’t pay up, their USSD access will be disconnected by Monday, January 27, 2025.
Initially, 18 banks were at risk of being cut off due to a N200 billion debt, but nine of them have since paid up, reducing the total debt to N160 billion. The NCC is taking this step to protect consumers, who may be unable to access the USSD platform of the affected banks if they don’t pay their debt.
