The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has ordered commercial banks to settle disagreements over the use of Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) channel within three days.

CBN’s Director, Banking and Payment Systems Department, Dipo Fatokun, issued the directive at the ‘Meet The Executive’ forum organised by Finance Correspondents Association of Nigeria (FICAN) in Lagos recently.

“USSD transactions above N20,000 require two-factor authentication (2FA). No USSD financial service should be activated for customers unless the deactivation mechanism is put in place with effect from October, 2018,” said Fatokun who was represented by Assistant Director, Banking and Payments System Department, Taiwo Oladimeji.

“In addition, the CBN is currently working to properly structure and formalise the sandbox arrangement in Nigeria by collaborating with some infrastructure providers like the Nigeria Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS) to interact with FinTechs.”

According to him, said such resolution would help build more confidence in the payment system and bring more people into the financial services net.

He listed some of the provisions as authentication measures for transactions, International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI), Date of SIM Swap, Date of Device change, International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI).

Fatokun, however, said, “We are seeing new operators with technology savvy, more efficient models, and collaborations among new entrants as well as established participants in payments systems in ways that exhibit regulatory challenges.

“To meet up with the challenges, some countries have adopted regulatory sandbox approach which is not totally novel to the CBN.

“We are, however, working to properly structure and formalise the sandbox arrangement in Nigeria by collaborating with some infrastructure providers to interact with FinTechs.”