Central Bank of Nigeria(CBN) wants closer ties with the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) to address challenges facing growth of mobile money ecosystem in the country.
The apex bank says there is need to curb security breaches in the implementation of the Mobile Money Scheme (MMS) and strengthen services of telecommunication companies in Nigeria.
This was one of the key outcomes of discussion when Alhaji Suleiman Barau, the Deputy Governor, Operations, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), paid a courtesy visit to Prof. Umar Danbatta, the Executive Vice-Chairman, Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) Â at his office in Abuja.
The CBN Deputy Governor appealled for the resuscitation of the CBN/NCC joint technical committee which he says will be instrumental  in addressing the challenges facing mobile money operation and delivery of other financial services in the country.
The Deputy Governor listed some of the challenges confronting the Mobile Money Scheme to include weak processes associated with SIM Swap that leaves customers vulnerable to fraudulent elements, high cost of Unstructured Supplementary Service Data USSD by Deposit Money Banks (DMBs), lack of secured USSD Gateway for financial services and allocation of unique USSD Codes to licensed Payment Services Providers.
While noting that the challenges had adverse impact on mobile financial services and negated the national financial inclusion strategy, he notes that telecoms companies play vital roles in the mobile money service delivery value chain.
In his response, the Executive Vice-Chairman, Nigeria Communications Commission NCC, Danbatta expressed the Commission’s commitment to engage the CBN.
According to the NCC boss, the NCC would work tirelessly and diligently to ensure that every challenge in the financial services is resolved.
He also assured that the Commission would ensure the integrity of the gateway, which he declared would swing into action immediately to guarantee that the USSD gateway is adequately secured.
Top officials of the CBN that accompanied Barau on the visit include the Director, Banking and Payments System Department, Mr. Dipo Fatokun and Deputy Director and Head, Payments System Policy Oversight, Banking and Payments System Department, Mr. Musa Jimoh.
Others are Assistant Director, Banking and Payments System Department, Mr. Sola Agboola and members of the Secretariat of the Nigeria Electronic Fraud Forum (NeFF).
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