By Prince Osuagwu
MTN Nigeria announced yesterday that it has begun the formation of a long-term and sustainable pricing structure for its USSD unstructured supplementary service data transactions with banking channel partners.
Remember that the channel partners of the MTN bank temporarily suspended sales of MTN products on their platforms last week on April 2, 2021, claiming that the telecommunications company unilaterally adjusted the pricing regime without due consultation.
The outage caused great discomfort to MTN subscribers, as they were unable to purchase airtime on any banking channel for that day and the next.
However, services were restored on Sunday April 4, 2021 and customers were able to access all services. MTN said this was agreed on the basis that MTN would revert to its previous cost of sales structures with banking partners until a new long-term agreement on a sustainable pricing structure can be reached in the future.
In a statement made available by the Senior Manager of External Relations, Mr. Funso Aina, MTN said: “as a consequence of the intervention of the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, the Nigerian Communication Commission and the Central Bank of Nigeria, from On April 6, 2021, MTN has been participating in a series of meetings to align with longer-term pricing structures. We will provide an additional market update once these discussions have concluded.
The MTN optimization undertaken is an international standard and best practice, as scale is built across distribution channels. We are confident that banking industry partners will work with us to ensure this process is completed as quickly as possible for the benefit of the entire industry.
“MTN would like to thank our clients for their patience and express our regret for the inconvenience imposed on them while the banking channels were offline. In order to further expand the range of channels available to customers, MTN has activated a number of new channel partnerships with financial technology partners, including Sparkle, Konga Pay, Barter By Flutter Wave, Jumia Pay, OPay, Kuda, Carbon, BillsnPay, MTN On -Require MTN Xtratime airtime loans, among others, and these will be maintained, significantly expanding the channels available to our clients and increasing our sales and distribution network ”.
He commended the interventions of the Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, the Nigerian Communication Commission and the Central Bank of Nigeria towards the resolution of the dispute.
