The South African Tele communication Mtn has Realeae a press Release stating that their attention has be called on SMS charges sent on 19th October to customers as it is rumour.
Our attention has been drawn to SMS sent on Saturday 19th October by MTN Nigeria
Communications PLC (“MTN”) to customers of banks in Nigeria in respect of the above.
The message states that the banks requested MTN to start charging customers for
USSD transactions directly. It also asks customers to contact their banks for more
information.
We wish to state as follows:
That the banks did not ask MTN to start charging customers as contained in the
text message. The decision on whether, and what amount, to charge a customer
for accessing USSD is entirely that of the telco company, in the same way a
customer is billed for calls, SMS and data.
MTN is the only Telco that is yet to implement end-user billing which is the
standard practice for customer-initiated transactions. This is despite the fact that
the banks, working with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), have engaged MTN
over a period of more than one year to try and bring down the cost of USSD to
aid financial inclusion.
That the banks are determined to pursue the National Financial Inclusion
Strategy of the Federal Government of Nigeria and will continue to advocate that
Telcos identify wholeheartedly with this laudable initiative and implement
transparent and low pricing model in the use of USSD access codes.
We wish to re-iterate that financial transaction charges are regulated by the CBN
as stipulated in the Bankers Tariff, and that the charges for financial transactions
carried out with banks remain unchanged.
