MTN
Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, has waded into the trade dispute between commercial banks and mobile network operator, MTN Nigeria.
Pantami, in a tweet Friday night wrote, “On the fallout between @MTNNG and some banks on USSD services today, I engaged with both regulators, the Governor of @cenbank and EVC @NgComCommission.
“We have reached an advance stage of resolving the issues, for the services to be restored to our citizens. Many thanks!”
MTN is currently embroiled in a tug of war with Nigerian banks regarding how much percentage banks should earn from every recharge.
Commercial banks early Friday disconnected MTN customers from banking channels including the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data, USSD, and banking apps.
According to a source familiar with the story, prior to now, banks and aggregators share 4% of every successful recharge, while MTN keeps 96% but currently MTN wants the reduction of banks’ and aggregators’ to 2.5%.
The source added that this is what the banks are fighting against.
“Despite the banks’ plea that MTN shouldn’t reduce their percentage, MTN was and is still adamant they’ll go ahead with the reduction.
“Banks’ CEOs met and decided to (temporarily) remove MTN services from their USSD and apps as a way to make MTN budge.”
