Other than impunity, it’s hard to imagine a more fitting description of the failure by some banks to settle the outstanding invoices due to telecoms companies for the use of their Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) codes as a result of which the National Communications Commission (NCC) was last week forced to wield the big stick.

The NCC notified members of the public that “it has granted approval to telecoms companies to disconnect USSD codes assigned by the commission to financial institutions that are indebted to the telecoms companies, if such institutions do not settle the outstanding invoices by Monday, January 27, 2025.”

Surely, the measure is not without justification: Out of a total of 18 financial institutions, nine were said to have failed to comply significantly with the directives of the second joint circular of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the NCC, dated December 20, 2024 for the settlement of outstanding invoices due to telecoms companies since 2019.

The nine offending banks are Fidelity Bank, First City Monument Bank (FCMB), Jaiz Bank, Polaris Bank, Sterling Bank, United Bank for Africa (UBA), Unity Bank, Wema Bank and Zenith Bank.

The commission in the notice made clear that it will “recover such codes and may reassign them to other applicants in accordance with the applicable instruments” – adding that in fulfilment of its consumer protection mandate, consumers will from that date be unable to access the USSD platform of the affected banks.

Ordinarily, we would consider it unimaginable that any bank would choose to treat the issue of USSD short codes with such levity, merely by what it represents. And given that the USSD by their operation actually enables a segment of their numerous customers to carry out electronic transactions without the need for a smartphone and without the data for connectivity, its vital role in deepening financial services in an infrastructure-challenged environment ought to be self-evident.

What makes the issue even more difficult to understand, at least to the discerning public, is that every single transaction carried out on the USSD platform is supposed to be charged to the account of the user and with it the expectation of onward remittance to the service providers based on prior agreement.

That the banks will rather hold on to the fund accruing from the transactions, without lawful authority, which is essentially the issue at stake, makes it unfathomable.

Of course, we find the resort by the NCC to the drastic measure perfectly justifiable even if mild going by the way and manner the banks in general are known to go after their so-called delinquent borrowers. However, the point here isn’t whether the recalcitrant banks should be allowed to suffer the consequences of their ignoble act; it is also not about whether or not they can whimsically dispense with the USSD services. Rather, it is whether the CBN can afford to endorse the brazen impunity under which the users of the code are taken out of the service for no fault of theirs.

Recovering the codes, as necessary as it might seem in the circumstance, obviously settles nothing. It’s merely leaving the offender banks to their devices. What the justice of the situation demands is getting the banks to pay what they owe together with fines that the regulators might deem appropriate.

This is what will best serve the interests of the telecoms companies, while also preserving the interests of the hapless bank customers who have come to rely on the codes for their daily transactions. To the extent that this is something within the powers of the regulators to do, it is precisely where the axe ought to have fallen. (The Nation Editorial)