The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has directed all commercial banks to resolve disputes arising from use of Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) channel within a period of three days.
Speaking in Lagos at the forum organised by Finance Correspondents Association of Nigeria (FICAN), CBN Director, Banking & Payment Systems Department, ‘Dipo Fatokun, said such resolution will help build more confidence in the payment system and bring more people into the financial services net.
He said some provisions of the regulatory framework for USSD such as the authentication measures for transactions, International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI), Date of SIM Swap, Date of Device change, International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) among others were meant to make the channel more effective.
Fatokun, who was represented by Assistant Director, Banking & Payments System Department, Taiwo Oladimeji, said maximum USSD transaction limit remains N100, 000 per customer per day adding that any amount above that requires customer to execute indemnity at the bank.
Fatokun, who spoke on “Half-Year Review of Developments in the E-Payment Industry and Customer Protection, said: “USSD transactions above N20,000 require two-factor authentication (2FA). No USSD financial service should be activated for customer unless the deactivation mechanism is put in place with effect from October, 2018. In addition, the CBN is currently working to properly structure and formalize the sandbox arrangement in Nigeria by collaborating with some infrastructure providers like the Nigeria Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS) to interact with FinTechs”.
Fatokun added that the financial system is undergoing transformation through technology, adding that it is not only peculiar to the financial services sector, but all sectors of human endeavours.
He said a well-functioning National Payments System (NPS) is crucial to the financial sector development as it increases confidence in the financial sector by ensuring a credible, reliable and efficient payment system. He added that in recent years, the Nigerian payment landscape has experienced a lot of innovation, bursting with enterprise and reaching the unbanked and undeserved.
He further said consumer protection, involves a whole range of laws, policies, structures, actions and behaviours designed to protect consumers from the abuse and exploitation of service providers.
“Consumer protection is critical in improving access and usage of financial products and services. It ensures that increase access and usage of financial services, translate into benefits for the economy and individual, helps protect consumers from probable market abuse and exploitation, amongst others.
