Here are banks whose USSD codes won’t stop working

Telecommunication companies acting under the Nigerian Communications Commission’s (NCC) directive will cut off the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) access of nine banks over their inability to settle a N160 billion debt that has accumulated since 2019.

In a recent notice, the NCC listed the banks and their USSD codes: 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).

However, the following banks’ USSD codes won’t be impacted: Access Bank (901), Ecobank (326), First Bank (894), GTBank (737), Heritage Bank (745), Keystone Bank (7111), Stanbic IBTC Bank (909), Union Bank (826), Globus Bank Ltd (989), Standard Chartered Bank Ltd (977), and Lotus Bank (5045).

The impacted banks’ USSD access will be cut off after Monday, January 27, 2025, if they do not pay their debt. “In fulfillment of its consumer protection mandate, the Commission wishes to inform consumers that they may be unable to access the USSD platform of the affected financial institutions from January 27, 2025,” the NCC said.

Read also: These 9 banks USSD codes will stop working from January 27

USSD is a crucial payment gateway for many Nigerians, especially those using feature phones in a country where smartphone penetration stood at 59 percent in urban areas and 26 percent in rural regions in 2023.

During the 20th anniversary of the telecoms sector in 2021, the then Group Managing Director of Zenith Bank Plc, Mr Ebenezer Onyeagwu, said, “The introduction of USSD changed everything. Without telecoms infrastructure, there is no USSD code.”

With USSD, individuals living in areas without banks can open accounts and carry out transactions. Bolaji Akinboro, chairman of Voriancorelli, stated, “USSD is very crucial. It is a universal channel, so you can access financial services regardless of the phone you use.”

However, the inability of some commercial banks to settle a payment dispute with telcos since 2019 threatens access for many dependent on this service. This step follows a recent order by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the NCC, which ordered banks to pay a chunk of the USSD debt owed to telcos.

In a December 20 memo, the CBN and NCC gave banks a December 31, 2024, deadline to pay 85 percent of all outstanding invoices (from February 2022), and according to the NCC, nine of the 18 banks indebted to the telcos cleared over 90 percent of their debt. It revealed that the total debt had fallen from over N200 billion to N160 billion.