The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Pantami and Central Bank of Nigeria Governor (CBN) Godwin Emefiele have intervened in the misunderstanding between commercial banks in Nigeria and MTN, leading to the restoration of MTN Apps.
The commercial banks had disconnected MTN customers to banking channels, including the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) and banking apps last week Friday.
As a result of the conflict, the commercial banks blocked about 77 million MTN subscribers, accounting for about 45 per cent of the total telecommunication market share in Nigeria, with many of them stranded and unable to recharge airtime via USSD, especially during the Easter celebrations.
Sources said that the blockade was due to reduction of banks’ commission from 4.5 per cent to 2.5 per cent by the telco.
The banks were said to have written MTN to revert to the old commission, vowing to block MTN airtime in all their channels.
While the blockade lasted, MTN explored alternative electronic payment platforms such as Flutterwave, Jumia Pay, OPay, Kuda, Carbon and BillsnPay for customer to recharge their phones.
