Banks Will Soon Restore MTN Services — Minister

Isa Pantami, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, has weighed in on the trade dispute between commercial banks and MTN Nigeria, the country’s largest mobile network operator.

Pantami, in a tweet late Friday, 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!”

Commercial banks disconnected MTN customers from banking networks early Friday, according to the News Direct, including the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data and banking applications.

Customers of MTN have complained about not being able to recharge their MTN lines using USSD or other banking platforms such as bank apps. As a result, MTN advised its customers to recharge their phones using physical cards.

News Direct has learned that the development is linked to the N42 billion debt owed by banks to mobile operators.

The telco also reduced the banks’ commission from an average of 3.5 percent to 2.5 percent, which influenced the banks’ decisions.

The banks had written to MTN, demanding that they return to the old commission system, otherwise they would block MTN airtime across all of their networks.

The banks, with the exception of Zenith Bank, which was directly connected to MTN, then barred MTN from their banking networks, leaving many MTN subscribers disappointed because they couldn’t recharge airtime via USSD during the Easter holidays.

MTN has the largest share of the Nigerian mobile market, accounting for nearly half of the country’s total mobile subscribers.