Yesterday mid-night banks across the country suspended MTN from their USSD platform. Following MTN’s arbitrary reduction of commission from 4percent to 2percent paid to the bank for services rendered.
The banks and other agents have rejected MTN's unilateral reduction of commission insisting that the 4% percent remains the barest minimal they can accept because the two percent cannot cover costs including the cost of fraud in the system.
Like many consumer goods companies, MNOs employ a distribution chain to get their products (mainly Airtime and SIM-Cards) into the hands of end consumers. Part of the existing distribution chains of Nigerian Telecom industry players is the Banks. The MNOs leverage the Bank’s wide reach and systems to sell Airtime to its customers electronically, Banks collect money for the sales, earn a commission from it and remit sales proceed less its commission to the MNOs. This model has worked perfectly for many years saving the Telecoms industry billions of NAIRA and providing convenience for millions of Nigerians. That is until recently when MTN decided to upset it because of their greed.

On March 30th, MTN acting unilaterally on its own, without consultation or negotiation with the Banks, who are part of its Airtime distribution chain, reduced the commission paid to the Banks for helping MTN sell its Airtime from 4% to 2.5%. This puts the Banks in a precarious and economic loss position, as the cost of marketing and airtime vending infrastructure maintenance by the Banks outweigh the new commission rate imposed by MTN. No other Telco is doing this but only MTN.

After failed efforts to get MTN’s attention to discuss reversion to the status quo, the Banks have decided to protect their businesses from a looming adverse economic impact by suspending the sales of MTN Airtime through their channels until such a time when a favorable rate is agreed with MTN.
This invariably means you can’t purchase MTN Airtime from any bank channel until further notice.
Just to note that this is completely different from the USSD service billing which is an industry issue for both the Banking and Telecom industries and is about the determination of the best and most reasonable method to adopt for billing customers for Telco USSD service when used to access banking service.
Last night, nearly all commercial banks have already yanked off MTN From their USSD, airtime purchase, and other online services from the MTN network due to the disagreement between the financial institutions and the telecommunication company on the amount to be charged.

PAPERBOI say monkey kill monkey.

No wonder, thank God the bank refunded my money after failed transactions and was debited