Pan African bank, Ecobank has announced that it is cancelling charges on USSD services from its customers going forward.
This announcement was made at the 4th National Fintech Conference in Lagos by the bank’s Managing Director, Patrick Akinwunmi.
Mr. Akinwunmi while making the announcement also urged other Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) as well as telcos to do same.
He said, “For us, at Ecobank we will not charge anybody when you use our shortcode *326# to do financial transactions going forward and I challenge my colleagues in the banking industry and telecommunication companies to do the same thing. We should not be having a debate of what excludes Nigerians from what I will say is the financial human rights to participate in the economy.”
Recall that there has been an uproar from Nigerians on MTN’s widely circulated SMS about a week ago which informed the telecommunications subscribers to cry foul.
Although this directive was refuted by the Body of Bank’s Chief Executive Officers which insisted that no such directive was given, the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria had nevertheless accused the bank CEOs saying they were the biggest beneficiaries.
