Banks Restore USSD Services On MTN After Two-day Blockade

Banks Restore USSD Services On MTN After Two-day Blockade

iexclusive News Nigeria reports that Commercial banks have reconnected MTN customers to banking channels, after disconnecting them on Friday April 2, 2020.

The reconnection included the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) and banking apps.

This online news medium learnt that the development was as a result of the immediate intervention of the Minister of Communication and Digital Economic, Isa Pantami and the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele.

The banks had blocked MTN users, believed to be around 77 million which accounted for about 45 percent of the total telecommunication market share in Nigeria, many of them remained stranded and unable to recharge airtime via the USSD amid the Easter holiday and celebration.

The blockade was as a result of the reduction of banks’ commission from 4.5 percent to 2.5 percent by the telecom company.

The banks had written MTN to revert to the old commission, with vows to block MTN airtime in all their channels.

MTN on the other hand had explore alternative electronic payment platforms such as the Flutterwave, Jumia Pay, Opay, Kuda, Carbon and BillsnPay for customers to recharge their phones.