Adesun Kehinde 
Many Nigerians will soon start asking questions about their <span;>Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (<span;>USSD) billing and the manner in which the charges are being deducted from their airtime accounts.
Beginning June 18, 2025, you will no longer be charged for your USSD services from your bank account. You will be charged from your airtime balance!
So, when you want to recharge your airtime credit through your bank, or you want to do a transfer of “urgent 2k” to a friend as a mark of kindness while using a code, the N6.98 USSD charge associated with the service will be billed to your airtime balance. Watch out and thank goodness if you have enough balance just to carry the transaction through!
The Nigerian Economy recently reported that several Nigerians had reacted to a recent directive from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), requiring banks to bill USSD charges to users’ airtime balance and no longer to their banks. Read the report here.
Many banks have informed their customers about the change in USSD billing system via emails, but a good number of Nigerians will still miss the message. Moreso, the impact of a change like this will only be felt and understood when the implementation begins.
Guaranty Trust Bank on Tuesday informed its customers that starting June 18, 2025, the N6.98 transaction fee will be deducted from their airtime balances and no longer their bank accounts.
GTBank’s love message to its customers was terse and tuned. It says: “Dear Customer, please be informed that effective 18 June 2025, the N6.98 USSD fee will be deducted from your airtime balance, no longer from your bank account. Thank you.”
Why the change?
This move is part of a larger industry realignment that was ordered by the Nigerian Communications Commission and the Central Bank of Nigeria to settle ongoing disagreements between banks and telecom providers around unpaid USSD service fees.
Also, in the past, banks billed customers via their bank accounts while automatically passing on USSD usage costs to telcos.
<span;>Telcos, however, protested that banks were profiting from the service yet delaying or avoiding payments for the infrastructure usage, leading to debts estimated at ₦250 billion by 2024.
The NCC implemented an End-User Billing model to rectify this imbalance, directing banks to transfer fees to airtime billing and repay debts only after past-due obligations have been settled. Users will receive a prompt at the beginning of each USSD session under the new paradigm, and if there is enough balance, airtime will only be taken away after confirmation.
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