The battle between Nigerian banks and telecoms giant, MTN, took another dimension on Saturday when the lsnubbed them and embraced new platforms.
The banks are angry at MTN’s decision to reduce the commission they get on airtime transaction, forcing them to block MTN.
The decision has caused subscribers agony but rather than succumb, MTN has migrated to alternative electronic payment platforms such as Flutterwave, Jumia Pay, OPay, Kuda, Carbon and BillsnPay.
MTN in a statement on Saturday by its Senior Manager, External Relations, Funso Aina, also said customers could recharge airtime by dialing *904# and *606#.
It has thus asked its 77 million subscribers to load airtime via the playforms.
The telco reduced the banks’ commission from an average of 3.5 per cent to 2.5 per cent which predicated the actions of the banks.
The banks, except Zenith Bank which was connected directly to MTN, subsequently blocked MTN from their banking channels, leaving customers stranded as they were unable to recharge virtually.
Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, had said the matter would be resolved. “We have reached an advance stage of resolving the issues, for the services to be restored to our citizens,” he had said.
But in a statement on Saturday, MTN said, “It will interest you to note that for the benefit of our customers who have been greatly inconvenienced by the service suspension, we now have alternative channels of accessing MTN services electronically.”
